How Can I Tell What Kind of Tadpoles I Have?
This is a tricky question and one that has befuddled many biologists for a long time. The easiest way, but not always 100% accurate, would be to find a frog near where you found the tadpoles and there’s a good chance they are the same species. If you can’t find an adult frog, do a little research on the amphibious wildlife indigenous to your area and you may be able to narrow it down a bit more. This won’t always give you a firm answer, as many areas will have several native species of frogs.
A more scientific method is through close observation and comparing your tadpole to a known chart. The below images and chart should help you get started.
First, where are the eyes? Are they lateral or dorsal?
Next, check the vent location. You may have to hold the tadpole in your hand to check this. Is it Medial or Dextral?
Next you’ll need to check the tail musculature. Is it high, medium or low?
And lastly, you’ll compare these results with the tadpole anatomy wheel below. (Click on the picture to see a full-size image.)
Following this procedure should give you a good idea and help you narrow it down. Of course, the only surefire way to identify the species will be to wait and see what kind of frog it grows into. The source of these images is the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) website.
For information on where you can buy your own frog and tadpole habitat, see the live animal kits at Atomic Elephant Toy.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
May 31st, 2008 at 9:05 pm
i moved to a new house and my pool was not finished so we found out that three frogs where in our pool 2 of them were mating and yesterday may,3o,08 i saw a tad pole i saw a bunch and today may,31,08i have 37 in a big contanier as i am writeing to you they are beside me swimming
June 6th, 2008 at 8:29 am
That sounds fun! My son and I caught 10 tadpoles this spring and raised them all to frogs. In fact, just last week we let them go back into the pond where we found them. Check out my tadpole experiment blog if you want some tips on how to raise them. Or at least information on how we raised our Southern Leopard Frog tadpoles. It was a fun experiment.
June 21st, 2008 at 11:55 pm
yeah i just caught about 40 tadpoles and i still cannot find out out what kind of frog they are .any tips?
June 23rd, 2008 at 9:11 am
Alex- first, how big and what color are they? If they’re still mostly black, about 3/8 inch across with small tails you may have to wait a couple weeks before you can tell. They could even be salamander tadpoles (but if you found them in a pond, they’re probably frogs).
Next, where did you find them? Ie., what state and what environment: tadpoles from a pond in Pennsylvania would grow up to something very different from tadpoles found in a puddle in New Mexico.
Do a quick search on any search engine for “native frogs in Pennsylvania” (or whatever state you’re in) and you should get some ideas of what frogs live around there. The leopard frog is pretty common in a lot of the U.S. so there’s a good chance that may be what you have. Check out my tadpole experiment blog for some pictures of the Southern Leopard Frog tadpoles. Good luck with them!
August 15th, 2008 at 11:35 am
my tadpoles are all now frogs and I still can’t tell exactly what kind of frogs they are. They might be the southern leopard frog, but they’re not as green as most of the pictures of southern leopard frogs that I’ve seen. do you think they’ll become more green as they get older? I saw a similar topic like this on a post called, the great tadpole experiment. It had some neat pictures of tadpoles too.