Over the bank holiday weekend I was back home and as the pond sat dilapidated in my parents' garden, swamped with duckweed I was commanded to address the situation; my brother was quick point out I work for a charity that does ‘nature and stuff’. That I work mostly behind a desk didn’t seem to matter.While not much to look at this pond turned out to be full of life including water hog-lice, caddisfly larvae, leeches (still can’t bring myself to like those) and tadpoles.
Filling a wheelbarrow with duckweed till it overflowed, we could then observe the infant frogs as they munched at something on pond liner.When I saw an adult splashing about, I was struck by the massive differences between them, and wondered about the process that takes the frog from something similar to a fish to an animal equipped to live on land.It’s not even like the process takes place inside a cocoon, as with moths and butterflies, the little tadpoles have to deal with new changes to their bodies almost daily. Their small mouth growing a large jaw bone and guts rearranging in preparation for a totally different diet, whilst lungs develop and legs sprout seemingly out of no where!They gain skin glands to keep them moist out of the water and lose that tail which once made up more than half their length through a process of 'apoptosis', controlled cell death.Their nervous system also undergoes big changes. They lose their lateral line system (found in fish such as sharks) which detects movement in water, and their eyes adapt to see in the terrestrial world which includes gaining the ability to blink.
All in all a pretty spectacular change. Frogs and other amphibians are in global decline at the moment. If you have any tips or knowledge you'd like to share on helping them please do comment.