Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
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.
Most species (e.g. Blyth's river frog L. blythii or the fanged river frog L. macrodon) develop normally, with free-swimming tadpoles that eat food. [5] The tadpoles of the corrugated frog (L. laticeps) are free-swimming but endotrophic, meaning they do not eat but live on stored yolk until metamorphosis into frogs. [5]
The species is terrestrial, but returns to the water for breeding, where egg masses are laid onto rocks in streams. The quite muscular tadpoles are carnivorous and feature several rows of horned teeth. Adults feed on slugs, myriapods, spiders, beetles, and grasshoppers.
Ambystoma talpoideum, the mole salamander, is a species of salamander found in much of the eastern and central United States, from Florida to Texas, north to Illinois, east to Kentucky, with isolated populations in Virginia and Indiana. Older sources often refer to this species as the tadpole salamander because some individuals remain in a ...
After a few days, they become carnivorous and eat animals. [10] Tadpoles sometimes resort to cannibalism to survive. After multiple experiments, Paul Székely, Marian Tudor, and Dan Cogalniceanu concluded that tadpole development is influenced by hydroperiod, or the period in which an area is full of water.
This causes the tadpole to be unable to move away and ultimately die at the hands of this insect. Physical contact with this ant species is the only thing that causes tadpoles to attempt to flee through jumping, therefore showing that this species has no specialized way to avoid this predation. [11]
Fully terrestrial species such as the fire salamander have a flatter lens which can focus over a much wider range of distances. [20] To find their prey, salamanders use trichromatic color vision extending into the ultraviolet range, based on three photoreceptor types that are maximally sensitive around 450, 500, and 570 nm. [ 21 ]
Also where the larvae develop into tadpoles and transfer into a terrestrial area. The Houston toad is generally found in areas with loose, sandy soils greater than 40 in (100 cm) in depth and large rolling uplands. Slow-moving or still bodies of water that last at least 30 days are needed for breeding and tadpole development. [16]