Tadpoles

[snag]

2 Questions
1/ The Tadpoles in my pond are eating the nuts that have fallen of the bird feeder is this normal ?
2/ My water snail's have vanished !why is this ?

[frogplate]

Sure they are actually eating the nuts and not just rasping the surface for algae? In the early stages of development Common Frog tadpoles are vegetarian and scrape algae off any likely looking surface in the pond (including snails, adult frogs etc). They only become carnivorous once the legs start to appear.

Mind you, our love Tetramin fish food flakes, so perhaps they will go for any protein they can get.

Cheers,

Jonathan

[The Woodman]

I think they do. Taddy's in my pond love the occassional all in one dog biscuit - flip one in and there's an instant oil ring develop around it but it's a magnet for tadpoles and they push and shove it around as they graze the softening outparts. Iam concerned about the oil slick, instantly taddys will start mouthing the surface as if gasping for oxygen. Are they "eating" the oil or just gulping air? They come to no harm and crowd round the biscuit.

Dodgson and Horrell Supreme - highly recommended!

[snag]

They are definitely eating the nuts !
Dont have a dog ..I have cats .. maybe they would like Go-Cat !
Thank for your reply

[frogplate]

Originally Posted by The Woodman

Iam concerned about the oil slick, instantly taddys will start mouthing the surface as if gasping for oxygen. Are they "eating" the oil or just gulping air?

I suspect that is just their natural reaction when they detect food floating on the surface. I see exactly the same thing occur when I drop crushed up fish food flakes on the surface.

[Pogo]

Whole peanuts? How big are they?

[snag]

They are the single nuts in the red skins get them in mixed bird seed .

[frogplate]

We have an aquarium in the garden containing forty of our Rana temporaria tadpoles as insurance against predators in the trug pond. So in the interests of scientific enquiry I dropped in a red-skinned peanut from the bird seed.

It has been in ten hours so far and is showing very distinct signs of being gnawed. Something has cut through the skin and taken the surface off the nut itself.

I say 'something' because along with the tadpoles there is a single water snail about the size of the largest tadpole in there somewhere. I'll remove it when I see it. But so far I haven't actually observed either species show any interest in the peanut, though something obviously has.

The research continues...

[snag]

LOL...
I have put a copule of new nuts in the pond and the tads are gnawing away!

I don't think its the snail's as they seem to have vanished I don't know if it was the -7 in January that did for them ?

[frogplate]

After days of intensive scientific research and observation I've come to the conclusion that although the tadpoles will occasionally work away at a peanut they are probably trying to scrape algae off it rather than eating the skin or kernal itself. On the other hand water snails do seem to grind their way into and eat the nut.

Our experimental peanut initially lost a patch of skin and a rectangular gouge appeared in the kernal. However when I removed all the water snails from the aquarium there was no further erosion of the nut. The tadpoles were seen to hoover over the peanut at times but didn't really show too much interest.

It should be noted that the tadpoles have good supply of food in the aquarium, so things might be different if they were less food or a higher population density.

Now looking for funding for my research into whether fairy shrimp will eat banana sandwiches.