Thursday, March 27, 2008

Polliwogs and Other Critters


Check out this moth. Cool, eh? Now this is great camouflage. I have some slightly better pictures of the tadpoles and other pond critters.
Upon close inspection, I believe that I only have one species of polliwog but I think they're at different stages of development. The one pictured here is the 'early' stage which is basically a black blob with a tail.
The little guy at right is about the same size as the black blobs but looks significantly different in terms of body shape. The guy at left is in the same version, only bigger. As you can see, internal parts appear more developed.
I came this conclusion because I cleaned out this tank this morning and counted 18 'more developed' tadpoles and not a single black blob. That's roughly the same number that I originally had but divided between blobs and more developed ones. Since tadpoles eat algae, I've kept the tank chock full of the stuff which results in poor visibility, making it impossible to do daily head counts.

We have at least four other species, here are pictures of three of them (the fourth is way too tiny to photograph). Oh, we also had mosquito larvae but I committed mass homicide and wiped out that population.
I think this guy is my favorite, yet I don't have any idea as to what it actually is.
Here we thoughtfully provided a Bailey hair for a size comparison.