What are the characteristics of tadpoles? How to raise tadpoles after they grow front legs?

Tadpoles are an early stage of amphibian individual development. Early tadpoles are round or oval in shape, fish-like in appearance, with a large and flat tail with segmented tail muscles. There are thin film-like upper and lower tail fins above and below the myometrium, which can help tadpoles swim in water. What are the characteristics of tadpoles? The following is an introduction from Encyclopedia Knowledge Network, I hope it will be useful to you.

Contents of this article

1. What are the characteristics of tadpoles?

2. How to raise tadpoles after they grow front legs

3. Why choose tadpoles for the experiment?

What are the characteristics of tadpoles?

1. Tadpoles are the aquatic larvae of frogs and toads. Compared with salamander larvae, tadpoles are shorter, oval, with wider tails, smaller mouths, and no external gills. The internal gills are covered by gill covers. The tadpoles of frogs have lighter body color, slightly round body, long tail, and mouth at the front of the head. The tadpoles of toads have black body and lighter tail, oval body, short tail, and mouth at the front of the head. The tadpoles of toads are black, with mouth at the front of the head, while the tadpoles of frogs have lighter body color and mouth at the front of the head. The tadpoles of toads are smaller than those of frogs. The tadpoles that are densely packed are toad tadpoles, while the tadpoles that are more scattered are mostly frog tadpoles.

2. Under natural conditions, each female frog can lay up to 5,000 eggs, with a hatching rate of about 50%, while the survival rate of tadpoles is only 20% to 30%. Under artificial breeding conditions, tadpoles are generally hatched after 8 to 15 days of artificial incubation after the mother frog lays eggs. The newly hatched tadpoles are brown-yellow in color, 6 to 8 mm long, with a horseshoe-shaped sucker on the head for attachment, and the mouth is located below the sucker. They are weak and have little activity. They are supplied with nutrition through the yolk sac and do not open their mouths to eat. After 3 days, they can be fed with exogenous nutrients to meet their nutritional needs and growth needs.

How to raise tadpoles after they grow front legs

After the tadpoles grow their front legs, you need to place stones so that the tadpoles can emerge from the water on the stones. Tadpoles are an early stage of amphibian individual development. The early tadpoles are round or oval in shape, look like fish, and have lateral line organs. Since there are no openings in their mouths, they cannot take in food. Later, eyes and nostrils appear one after another. There are suction cups under the head, which can be used to attach to water plants. There are external gills on both sides of the head for breathing. The tail is large and flat, with segmented tail muscles inside. There are thin film-like upper and lower tail fins above and below the myometrium, which can help the tadpoles swim in the water.

Why choose tadpoles for experiments?

Tadpoles undergo metamorphosis, with a short development cycle and large changes in body size, making them easy to observe. It is not convenient to feed thyroid hormones to insects, and mammals have a long development cycle, so it is easier to observe the effects of this hormone on their growth and development. After tadpoles grow and develop, the time of metamorphosis is greatly affected by the breeding and hatching season and the outside temperature. Generally, tadpoles that lay eggs and hatch from May to July can metamorphose in the three months from July to September. Tadpoles that breed and hatch after August to September have to overwinter and can only metamorphose into young frogs after April of the following year.