What do you Get with a Black Tail Tip?

Blanchard's Cricket Frog Tadpole, Homer Lake Wetland, July 5, 2021

The tadpole pictured above will turn into a Blanchard's cricket frog... if it lives long enough to do so, and if the wetland doesn't dry up first. With regard to the second, the race against time as the wetland is likely to be completely dry before the end of August, you can see that the tadpole pictured has the beginning of its hind legs (more visible in the photo below of the same tadpole). This guy may make it, but the cricket frogs are still calling so more eggs are still being laid and in my exploration today I came out with several smaller cricket frog tadpoles as well, some of which had no legs started yet, so we will see.

With regard to the condition that it lives long enough to mature into a cricket frog, all tadpoles are subject to heavy predation in whatever habitat they live. They spend all of their time eating and growing; in other words, turning herbivore food into carnivore food. This doesn't go unnoticed and central among their predators in the wetland as well as many other bodies of water, are dragonfly naiads.  If you revisit yesterday's blog post on the darners emerging from the wetland, you can see that the darner naiad that the adult dragonfly emerges from is sizable, and these are formidable predators. 

Researchers believe that the black tail tip of the Blanchard's cricket frog tadpoles may serve to draw a dragonfly's attention to the tail rather than the body. The tadpole is much more likely to survive an attack on the tail rather than a direct attack to the body. Interestingly, Blanchard's cricket frogs developing in an environment where fish are the dominant predator have significantly reduced tail spots, seeming to indicate that the tail spot may in fact be a detriment with regard to avoiding predation by fish. (See research here, for example.) Research is ongoing into what environmental cues these and other tadpole species respond to as their development as well as their behavior is modified according to the specific predators that are present. The abstract of this study summarizes a number of other studies for those that are interested.

In this photo the developing hind legs are more clearly apparent.



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