Tadpole Update

We got a chance to take some new pictures of Ribbity-Hoppers this afternoon.  There is just a tiny bit of tail left.  Watching the transformation has been amazing for all of us!  We will soon have to take Ribbity-Hopper back to his pond, but first we have to confirm what type of frog or toad we have.  Our favorite resource for identifying things we find s the Missouri Department of Conservation, which has a has a guide for frogs and toads here.

Tadpoles!

On one of the creek days we found and brought home a couple of tadpoles.  One was quite large and had small back legs.  The other was a lot smaller, but I was pretty sure they were both bull frog tadpoles.  They have been hanging out in a tank, eating lots of boiled lettuce, and growing.

The larger one, which the girls named Ribbity-Hopper, now has all of it's legs, and its tail is almost gone.  The larger one, Daisy, now looks like Ribbity-Hopper looked when we brought them home.  It is large, with rear legs.  One really interesting thing that we discovered was that both of Ribbity-Hopper's front legs did not emerge at the same time.  In fact, I thought for a while that we were going to have a three-legged frog, as the second front leg emerged a few days after the first.  The both look great now, though!

Here are a few pictures that were taken about a week and a half ago.

Ribbity-Hopper

Daisy

Creek Days - Spring Edition

We are so fortunate to belong to such an active homeschool group filled with wonderful people!  One of the members arranged creeks days for the group back in the fall, and then again this spring.  We have had such a great time learning about all of the incredible things that live around the creeks and ponds in our area.  Today's trip was to a section of Bear Creek, and was by far one of the most exciting adventures yet.  Being spring, the area was just teeming with life.  I really wish that I had taken my camera, but I did not.

What did we see today?  Well...
water striders
different types of tadpoles in great quantity (bullfrogs, American toads)
several different types of frogs (in fact Hailey caught a spring peeper)
a large turtle floating in the water
a couple of smaller turtles
several species of fish
a garter snake attempting to eat a toad, and then giving up after quite a long time and spitting it out
beetles
a lizard
a water scorpion
midge fly larvae

To top it off, we had a PhD student form Mizzou join us who studies aquatic invertebrates.

What an incredible morning!