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Frog tadpoles

Rana temporaria

A wriggling shoal of baby frogs, all head and tail.

Size
Up to about 3cm
Look for them
March to June
Where
Shallow, sunny edges of ponds in spring

My spotter's list

A wriggling shoal swims after you. Move your pointer and see.

When to look

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Tadpoles

Good to know

Six things about tadpoles

Hatching

Out of the jelly

Tadpoles hatch from frogspawn after about one to three weeks, depending on how warm it is.

Food

Vegetarians first

Young tadpoles graze on algae. As they grow, they start eating tiny animals too.

Legs

Back legs first

The back legs grow first, then the front legs pop out, and finally the tail shrinks away.

Time

About three months

It takes around 12 to 16 weeks for a tadpole to turn into a tiny froglet.

Numbers

Safety in numbers

A frog lays over a thousand eggs because only a few tadpoles survive to become frogs.

Shoals

Swimming together

Tadpoles from the same clump of spawn often stay together in shoals.

The real thing

Photos of tadpoles

Frog tadpoles, photo 1
Photo: böhringer friedrich, CC BY-SA 2.5, Wikimedia Commons
Frog tadpoles, photo 2
Photo: Tigerente, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Frog tadpoles, photo 3
Photo: Mariomassone, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
Out and about

How to spot them

Look in the warm, shallow edges of a pond from March to June. Black commas wriggling in a group are frog tadpoles; toad tadpoles are blacker still.

Lend a hand

How to help

Do not move spawn between ponds, as it spreads disease. Give them shallow water and plants, and keep goldfish out.

Keep going

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