Tadpoles!

So along with strawberries, another sure sign of spring are the arrival of tadpoles, the little punctuation marks of the aquatic world. A friend just emailed, asking if it’s too late to find them, because she and her kids trooped all over with jars in hand, seeking a few for observation.

Is it too late? Dunno. I think it depends on the species of frog. I’m going to troop down to our pond later today to check on the tadpole status. But first, have I ever told you about Toadini’s Great Escape?

My kids attended a science class years ago and came tumbling out, clutching little plastic bags. Inside, they each had a couple tadpoles. As a mom, I have to say to teachers everywhere: PLEASE don’t give kids live animals to bring home. It’s like sending kids home with little time bombs that will cause broken hearts, end up costing money, and usually escape.

Enter Toadini. He was more advanced than his peers — already had two fairly functional little legs sprouted and two promising front leg buds. We set them all up with some kind of green munchables in bowls in the middle of the table. And then, two days later, Sir Buffalo Sushi went to check on them. Where was Toadini (he wasn’t named this yet, by the way)? Was he hiding under the greenery? No. Nestled in a corner? Nope.

We searched the table. Under the bowl. On the chairs. On the floor under the table. How far could a little tadpole with no front legs go? If he even survived the plummet from the table, anyway. Well, apparantly a little tadpole with no front legs can make it clear across the room, because that’s where we found him, a bit…dried out.

The kids were distraught. As a soft-hearted weenie, I was distraught. The dog even started howling. I laid Toadini in my palm and dropped a couple dribblets of water on him to rehydrate him, and I kind of wiggled my fingertip on his teeny black mass. Kind of tadpole CPR…well, the CP part, anyway.

And then a little leg twitched.

We stared. It twitched again. I threw him into the bowl…where he promptly sank right to the bottom before kind of floating back up. I think he was on his belly, but with tadpoles it’s hard to tell up from down. It looked like he was a goner.

But then the little leg twitched again. Death spasm?

Nope. With a swish of his shrinking tail, he suddenly shot off across the bowl. Toadini was alive!

…and then we packed them all up and shipped them off to the pond. I don’t know how he made it, and I don’t want to try again. We don’t have a lot of luck with these critters. Remind me to tell you about the worm composting adventure. You know, the one where I didn’t realize worms could have babies smaller than the air holes in the compost bin, and learned this as I was walking across the front hall and said, “Why are there twenty tiny hairs wiggling on the floor?”