Saturday, June 12, 2010

Tadpole Trauma

Every year about this time, we do a massive tadpole rescue operation. The creek that borders our property flows seasonally- it goes from raging in the winter to mostly dry with the exception of a few puddles in the summer. We are down there a lot in the spring admiring all the new life, and while we catch and observe them for a few minutes, we don't take them from their home.
I've had other kids think I'm a big meanie for making them leave tadpoles in their creek home, but I figure if it has enough water to sustain them, that's where they should be- squiggling free. But, at some point when the rains stop for the season, you pretty much know that the tadpoles who still have tails but no legs are not likely to finish developing in time to hop away before the watery home dries up altogether.
I'm a big softy when it comes to animals, especially young ones, and the thought of dried up tadpoles disturbs me more than captive ones. So for the last few years, each spring when there is not much chance they'll make it otherwise, we head out with buckets and retrieve as many as we can. We have a big aquarium that we set up on our front porch for just this purpose. It has rocks and plants from the creek, and is open on the top with branches to help them climb / hop out to freedom when they're ready.
In years past, we've also had water skimmers make the habitat their home, as well as a few mosquito larvae (I catch and feed the mosquito larvae to chickens- I have no mercy or soft spot for them.)

This year, we had a horrid new bug stop by to eat at the habitat. It was a back swimmer, a true bug with a piercing mouth that is used both to suck plant juices, and to inject digestive juices into prey (such as tadpoles.) These nasty creatures can both fly and swim (they swim upside down, hence the name.) We had a handful get in our human swimming pool last year- they use their hideous mouth to bite humans too and it hurts, probably because of the digestive juices, which is just really creepy to think about.
Well, I was out observing my cute little tadpoles, and the tiny little frogs in our porch habitat, when I saw a most traumatizing site. One of those evil back swimmers was under water, upside down- it had it's disgusting mouth latched onto a cute little frog and was pulling it under! It was awful! I think I probably screamed something like "Oh my gosh you evil demon creature- what are you doing?!?" and quickly grabbed a nearby cup that one of my children had left on the porch. I scooped up the attacker and his victim, who were firmly attached, and yelled for my children. I'm not sure that I really thought through why on earth they should witness this disturbing scene, but they heard me and came running. We all hollered about the brutality of nature for a minute, and then tried to save the poor little frog, but sadly, it was too late for him. Nevertheless, we promptly smashed the awful back swimmer before he could find another victim or reproduce any more of his terrible kind. Again, no soft spot here.

Later the same day, we had another interesting encounter with nature. My Boy Child was scooping cupfuls of our habitat water and checking out what was in it up close when he came across another rather ugly insect near the bottom. I almost judged it based on it's ugliness, but then I thought it looked a little familiar, like it was possibly a dragonfly nymph. We looked it up in the Handbook of Nature Study, and sure enough, it was a little dragonfly in the making. Now, for another dilemma...apparently this little fellow is also a voracious predator too. Its one thing to know that he's ugly as sin right now, but will someday be a beautiful dragonfly, and it's another to know that he too is probably going to eat a bunch of our tadpoles along the way.

We kept him in a cup for a few hours while we decided. First, we read a bunch. On the plus side, we all enjoy the sight of dragonflies gracefully skimming through the air on summer evenings, and once they take wing, they eat other flying insects like mosquitoes by the dozen. They also eat mosquito larvae in the water while in the nymph stage which is another bonus. But, they aren't particular diners, so there's a good chance he'd also eat some of our our little legless frogs to be as well. They can also take years to get to the flight stage, and there was no way I'm keeping this tank habitat up for years. We looked for another body of water that might support him- preferably one that was full of mosquito larvae. Unbelievably, we couldn't find anyplace that looked like he could live there.

None of us felt right about dumping him, and since we hadn't seen him in the act of killing as we had with evil back swimmer, we certainly didn't feel he deserved a direct death sentence. We didn't really like the idea of him munching our tadpoles, but in the end, we decided that we'd take the risk. We did have about 12 million tadpoles in the tank, so a few might be sacrificial ones for our dragonfly. One nice thing is that dragonfly nymphs are bottom dwellers, so we wouldn't need to look at his ugliness or the carnage of his feeding.

Well, maybe a week later, I was out observing again, and I saw this little guy hiding in the grass. Our little nymph had just completed his transformation to his new dragonfly form- his wings weren't even dry yet, and his empty nymph shell was still right there next to him. It was very neat for the kids to see. We spotted another empty nymph shell in the grass, and later, found another nymph in the water. Apparently, we had more than one dragonfly, which was very cool. We also still have 12 million tadpoles, so we don't feel bad about the possibility that a few were snacked on either.
We're starting to get more and more little frogs every day. I have a feeling it's going to be a noisy summer around here.

13 comments:

  1. What a great nature study post! We collected tadpoles one year from our local wildlife preserve- with permission- if we agreed to return them when they became frogs. Imagine our horror when we came home from an outing and discovered that the cat had eaten all the tadpoles! We saved them from the dragonfly nymphs only to have our Siamese cat eat them! That was te last time we tried to grow a frog. Blessings!:)

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  2. How exciting to be able to watch the life cycle in action.

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  3. That's just all kinds of nature learning! Wow! But those tadpole-killing bugs do look REALLY creepy.

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  4. It was pretty exciting, and pretty creepy too. The wonders of nature never cease to amaze me.

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  5. WOW! that is SO cool!!!!! I'm almost jealous! You are doing a GREAT job creating learning experiences for your kiddos! My old blog was called Blah, Blah, Blog! very fun.

    amy in peru

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  6. Such a cool post!!! And yet made me feel a little icky too!

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  7. I just had my 12yo read this post! It was so timely. I had just read your post (wednesday, as evidenced above) when my friend came over and told me she and her kids had harvested a bunch of tadpoles to raise and observe (friday). And then today, my boy came up to me with a drawing he'd made as inspired by the boy's handy book that shows an aquarium similar to yours that he asked if he could build (sunday). Coincidence?! I like not to think so.

    Well, of course I had to do a search 'tortured tadpoles'... hahah. I couldn't remember exactly the title of your post ;) and have him read it! We're inspired! So... we will be referring back to this post in the coming days :) thanks so much for this inspiring post!

    amy in peru

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  8. I look forward to hearing how your tadpole adventure goes! Good luck!

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  9. i don't think it waas right of you to make the other kids put back thier tadpoles when you were perfectly fine with your children keeping them... alittle selfish i gotta say, i mean you don't own them or anything, right. it's not like you have control over the tadpoles. it could be a great learning experience for kids if you losen up a bit and let kids explore nature.

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  10. Well, we only moved the tadpoles when it's obvious that the water is almost gone and they'll dry up and die before they grow legs if they don't get relocated. I didn't tell the other kids no and then move them just for us to check out, although it was a benefit. I moved them months later because they were going to die otherwise. If other kids wanted them at that point, I'd be happy for them to give relocating the tadpoles a shot. Usually, when other kids visit though, the creek is full and running and the tadpoles are better off where they're at.
    I just don't think taking healthy, living creatures and putting them in a situation like a bag in the hot car for 4 hours before they get home, or to a place where they have no habitat for them, or any scene when it's pretty obvious that the animal is not likely to survive is right either, and it's not a lesson I'd want to teach.

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  11. I will definitely try to coordinate with other families if there are tadpoles in need of rescue when the creek gets close to drying up this year. Better captive than dead after all, but I'll be hoping most of them sprout legs and hop off in freedom before then.

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  12. Ohh sorry, i misunderstode compeltly. Please carry on what you are doing as it seems you are doing a good deed. I still think though, that you should consider asking the kids again, who were interessed in caring for them at the bigging of the year, if they would would like to relocate them too, so they have a part in the process and you won't longer be called the "big old meanie." or you can even let the kids watch them mature when the pond startes to dry up (as long as they relocate themat the end, of couse) Thank you for responding back to me as i now understand were you are coming from.
    I am only stating my opions like this, unlike the other mothers (from a differnt look on things) because i am a kid who may understand why kids may be upset over the fact that they think you are having full controll over them. I think explaining to the kids what you doing (thoroghly liike in your message back to me)and they will understand more! happy frog catching

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  13. Thanks for sharing your kids perspective with me. It's good to look at things from all points of view, and you're right- a lot of times adults don't explain the why behind things to kids. Sometimes we're just tired, but we should take the time so everyone understands we're not just being mean.
    I'm hoping to have a tadpole creek day this year if possible.

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