Tadpole Food

Find out what tadpoles eat at different stages of their life-cycle.

You Are What You Eat?

Animals can be sorted into groups based on what they eat. They can also eat different things at different stages throughout their lives.

Carnivores

Animals that only eat meat

Omnivores

Animals that eat plants and meat

Herbivores

Animals that only eat plants

Food in a Tadpole’s Life Cycle

Frogs like to eat different things at different stages of their life-cycle. This is due to them under going metamorphosis, but also because they change from living in only water as a tadpole into living in both water and on land as a frog. You can read more about the life cycle of a frog or metamorphosis.

Let’s explore the eating habits of tadpoles at different stages in their life.

Small Tadpoles

Once frog spawn have developed and hatched into small tadpoles, they make their way out of the jelly layer of the egg. New hatchlings can look like this:

Hatchlings eat algae by scraping it off the surface of water plants and rocks. At this stage in their life cycle they are mainly herbivorous.

If you ever want to simulate being a young tadpole in the wild, you can play TaddyPole, where you play as a young tadpole who munches your way through a pond and avoid being eaten by predators!

Bigger Tadpoles

Once tadpoles grow bigger and begin to develop their legs, they became carnivorous and feed on small water animals.

A tiny water flea, which is about 1mm long! – by Ayacop
Tadpoles eating a dead snail – by Mario Massone

They will also eat each other if there is not enough food around! This is something to be careful of when taking care of your own tadpoles, so click here to read more about how to feed tadpoles properly when taking care of them as pets.

Froglets and Adult Frogs

Froglets will eat small insects once they have left the pond. Adult frogs are mainly carnivorous and will also eat insects as well as slugs, snails and worms. Below is an old drawing of a frog about to catch a caterpillar with its tongue.

Quiz Time!

Results

We hope you now know more about what tadpoles like to eat! Click here to explore more topics.

 
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#1. What do you call animals that eat both meat and plants?

#2. At what stage do tadpoles begin to eat meat?

#3. Fill in the blank: "Tadpoles eat ________ at different stages in their life cycle".

#4. Which is not an example of something that an adult frog would eat.

Finish

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The Digestive System

 

The digestive system is modified to account for the change of the herbivorous diet of the tadpole to the carnivorous diet of the frog.

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The Skin

 

The skin adapts for the change from a purely aquatic lifestyle to an amphibious lifestyle.

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The Reproductive System

 

The urogenital system develops to allow for reproduction in adulthood.

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The Skeleton

 

The skeletal structure develops to accommodate the change from tail swimming to using legs to move around. The skull also needs to be remodelled for a frog's change in vision.

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The Nervous System

 

A tadpole sees from eyes that are positioned on opposite sides of the head. During metamorphosis, the optical nerves develop to accommodate a frog's binocular vision, where the eyes are positioned at the front of the head.

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1. Mating and Laying Spawn

 

Male and female frogs go to ponds in the winter. They mate in the spring, and the female lays big clumps of eggs.

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2. Frog Spawn

 

Frogs eggs are called frogspawn. Each round black egg is about 1 mm wide and is surrounded by a blob of jelly. Other animals produce spawn as well, which you can look at here.

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3. Maturing Frog Spawn

 

After a few days, the eggs begin to grow into tiny tadpoles inside the jelly.

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4. Hatchlings

 

Then the tadpoles hatch! They are about 5 mm long and they can’t swim (yet). They can bend their body from side to side using special muscles along their trunks and tails.

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5. Young Tadpoles

 

When their tail is big enough, they swim off into the pond to start to feed. At first they have gills (the pale protrusions from the head region in the left photo) so they can breath underwater like fish. Young tadpoles feed by grazing the surface of pond weeds and also eating tiny floating plants called algae.

Click here to play a tadpole feeding game called Taddypole!

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6. Maturing Tadpoles

 

Later they develop lungs and can swim up to the surface of the water to breath. The gills are absorbed back into their bodies and eyes develop. Older tadpoles are then able to feed on small animals like young insects.

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7. Mature Tadpoles

The next stage in development is to grow back legs. Tadpoles during this stage need to eat meat in order to get the proper nutrients to grow.

If you are looking after tadpoles, be careful as they can eat each other if you don't give them meat to eat! Click here to learn more about how to look after tadpoles as pets.

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8. Froglet

Finally, tadpoles grow front legs and their tail shrinks until it almost disappears. This is when they climb out of the pond and start living on dry land. Small frogs are commonly called froglets.

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9. Adult Frog

The little froglets will stay by the pond and slowly grow over the summer, eating small insects and worms. They will hibernate just like other adult frogs in damp spots near ponds from autumn until the next spring.

After four years, the new frogs will become adults and will be ready to mate and begin the cycle again.

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Copy - 9. Adult Frog

The little froglets will stay by the pond and slowly grow over the summer, eating small insects and worms. They will hibernate just like other adult frogs in damp spots near ponds from autumn until the next spring.

After four years, the new frogs will become adults and will be ready to mate and begin the cycle again.

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Desert Habitats

Desert habitats are the driest habitats in the world. Most people only think of very hot habitats as being deserts, but cold habitats can be deserts as well! Animals and plants that live in deserts have the ability to survive on very little water and animals can control their body temperatures so they stay at the right level.

 Some examples of plants and animals that live in deserts are cacti, the desert tortoise and the artic fox.

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Coral Reef Habitats

Coral reefs are found in warm tropical oceans all around the world. Coral reefs can be found in both shallow and deep water and take hundreds of thousands of years to grow! They provide food and shelter to many fish and other animals, making them habitats that are home to so many different types of life.

Some examples of plants and animals that live in coral reefs are the sea star, sea grass, the octopus and clown fish.

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