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Feeding on land is a completely different task than feeding in water. Water is much more dense and viscous compared to air, causing hunting techniques adapted in water to be less successful when applied on land. [11] The main technique used in water is suction feeding and is used by most aquatic vertebrates.
A tadpole or polliwog (also spelled pollywog) is the larval stage in the biological life cycle of an amphibian. Most tadpoles are fully aquatic, though some species of amphibians have tadpoles that are terrestrial. Tadpoles have some fish-like features that may not be found in adult amphibians such as a lateral line, gills and swimming tails.
Thoropa taophora tadpoles are dorsoventrally flat with a tail reaching a max length that makes up 70 percent of the animals total body length. The end of metamorphosis is marked with the total reabsorption of the individual's tail. [2]
Tadpoles retain the lateral line system of their ancestral fishes, but this is lost in terrestrial adult amphibians. Many aquatic salamanders and some caecilians possess electroreceptors called ampullary organs (completely absent in anurans), that allow them to locate objects around them when submerged in water. [ 74 ]
The evolution of tetrapods began about 400 million years ago in the Devonian Period with the earliest tetrapods evolved from lobe-finned fishes. [1] Tetrapods (under the apomorphy-based definition used on this page) are categorized as animals in the biological superclass Tetrapoda, which includes all living and extinct amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals.
Tadpoles of N. degiustoi constitute the oldest tadpoles found as of 2024, dating back to 168–161 million years ago. These tadpoles also showed adaptations for filter-feeding, implying residence in temporary pools by filter-feeding larvae was already commonplace. [37] The evolution of modern Anura likely was complete by the Jurassic period.
Modern amphibians, which evolved from earlier groups, are generally semiaquatic; the first stages of their lives are as waterborne eggs and fish-like larvae known as tadpoles, and later undergo metamorphosis to grow limbs and become partly terrestrial and partly aquatic.
In captivity, tadpoles have been raised on a variety of diets, ranging from algae to the eggs of other dart frogs, but with minimal success. O. pumilio tadpoles are considered obligate egg feeders, as they are unable to accept any other form of nutrition. After about a month, the tadpole will metamorphose into a small froglet.