Tiny Tim, Ninja, Soapy, Big Bob

The votes are in and the tadpoles are now christened.

Tiny Tim

Ninja

Soapy

Big Bob



Today we will name our 4 tadpoles

We have 4 tapoles that have lasted and will hopefully last until they turn into frogs. They are easily distinguished by their size. We have tiny, small, medium and huge. The huge tadpole has started to sprout legs, however they have not yet emerged out of his skin. Tonight Mr. C will post the tadpoles pics with their names.

One Animal has completed his journey with us!

We are pleased to announce that Mr. C arrived at work today to discover an adult damselfly. They are surprisingly larger than their nymph form. He must have found it quite close to when it had shed it's exoskeleton, because it was still unable to fly. He carried it around to the class to show us, and the grade 2 class as well. Ms. Damselfly was able to fly away before Mr. C was ready, but thankfully she was not able to sustain her flight and had to take a rest. The grade 2 class had some net houses for their butterflies that they weren't using so Mr. C was able to catch her and get her into the net house. We had noticed she was getting darker as this month went on, we knew that was a sign that she was getting closer. However, we had also read that some species take two seasons to get to the adult stage, and because of how small she seemed Mr. C was worried that might be the case, but she came through fantastically. She will be released into the wild near a pond today. Thanks for the show.

The last shed exoskeleton of the nymph stage of Ms. Damselfly

The adult Ms. Damselfly (We don't know that it's a female, but meh.)

We have 2 new videos!

Two of our students developed scripts for the tadpole and insect lifecycles. They were recorded and done up in CrazyTalk using a picture of a tadpole and the nymph taken by Mr. C. They are quite enjoyable.

Pages have started!

We have now added information to the about frogs page and the how to set up and take care of a terrarium.
Please have a look. If you would like to comment on the info, post comments here.

Our new tadpoles are just catching up to where we were with our last army, that is why we have not been posting as much as usual. Soon the posts will be coming as they are growing quickly.

Thanks for your patience.

Discovery

As our little specks that move have grown, we have realized that they are baby snails.

We are overrun with them. Mr. C will begin extracting them soon. We believe they are acting as one source of food for the tadpoles. We have removed one adult snail from the tank hoping that the eggs will no longer be fertilized. As soon as the tadpoles are big enough we will put the damselfly nymph back in with them as we believe it will also eat some of these tiny creatures.

Jubilation!

We have been granted a second chance. Thanks to Mrs. L who works in a grade 3/4 class in our district, we now have 7 happy tadpoles. These tadpoles were retrieved from the wild, and as we have said, wild frogs seem to have a better track record. We are going to make sure our tadpoles grow happy and healthy until the end of the year. Our area had a late spring, so we most likely will not see the whole cycle complete. Mr. C may try to keep the blog running after the school year ends and allow the students to continue to follow along for the rest of the cycle.

Thanks again Mrs. L!