I’ve always loved tadpoles, ever since I was a little girl and would see them in streams and ponds.  I especially loved to watch them in my Aunt Eunice’s goldfish pool.  This year I decided to try watching some of them metamorph into frogs.  This was after two failed attempts a couple of years ago.  We ordered a couple of tadpoles from a biological supply company.  We also caught a few others in a huge puddle in the woods this spring when we had so much rain.  I watched and cared for them best I could, while all but one died.  I figured it was almost time to count this as another failed attempt and watched daily, expecting to find the little guy dead.

After about three months, the strongest one still survived.  One happy morning I looked in on him and noticed tiny, almost see-through hindlegs.  They grew quickly over the next week, and almost overnight front legs emerged.  He still had a long tail, and I figured it would take awhile for it to shrink.  But it shrunk to a stubby little thing overnight and was gone completely in three days.  What a wonder of nature to watch a frog emerge from a polywog!  And our little treefrog (no larger than half an inch) is the cutest thing you’ve ever seen!  Check out what it looks like here, best I can tell.  Funny thing is, it started thriving and transforming when I stopped feeding it the “tadpole” food from the company and began giving it goldfish food!