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one eyed frogs


oneeyedfrog

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Hi,

The kids and I caught eight tadpoles from an old fish pond up the road a while back. We now have 6 wee frogs and 2 tadpoles ( golden bell frogs we think).

Anyway 5 out of the eight only have one eye. We are pretty sure the tadpoles were like this when we got them. We will go and check out some of the hundreds still in the pond.

Does anyone have any ideas as to what causes this?

I wondered about pesticides? or could it be something we have done?

Thanks for your help

oneeyedfrog

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Hi,

Do they really get their eyes bitten out? That's amazing!

I might ask the owners of the property if they have done any spraying lately.

We went down and checked out about 20 tadpoles in the fish pond and they all seemed to have two eyes. The kids were more interested in the hedgehog we fished out of the pond. So will have another look at more later

I will charge my camera up tonight and try and post some pics tomorrow.

Georgeous -We are an hour out of Whangarei at Whangaruru.

Thanks for your replies

oneeyedfrog

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not really carniverous by any stretch of the imagination?have seen them sucking on dead ones but don`t think for one second they even have the mouth parts to remove an eye let alone for 5 out of 8 to survive such an injury??some people say the strangest things and whats even stranger is they believe it????

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not really carniverous by any stretch of the imagination?have seen them sucking on dead ones but don`t think for one second they even have the mouth parts to remove an eye let alone for 5 out of 8 to survive such an injury??some people say the strangest things and whats even stranger is they believe it????

what a condescending post! I am offended repto.

My opinion was based on my experience of breeding frogs in the past and raising thousands off tadpoles to sell for a premium over the winter.

I have seen many examples of cannibalistic tadpoles that would rather bite pieces out of their live brothers and sisters than eat peas and algae.

Yes 5 out of eight is unusual but if one tadpole happened to be a cannibal and it was in a confined space with 7 others then it is by no means impossible.

also, the mother frog that produced all those tadpoles only had one eye. Now she has none because she lost the other from an infection last year.

I tend to base my opinions from what I have experianced first hand.

Before you go rubbishing peoples posts repto, I suggest you find out where they are coming from.

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Well I got some tadpoles today from a local Wellington spot, - also Golden Bell frogs (which are from Australia) and some of them have only one eye too!

It actually looks like a mutation, as the skin seems to be complete over the eye area, rather than injury.

I do know from experience that all GB tadpoles will eat each other wholly or partially if they get the chance - just like fish, if it fits in the mouth, it could be food! :lol:

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Well there were thousands of tadpoles in the pond when we collected these so they could have been hungry. Now there are only hundreds.

Last week we went down to see if we could see any young frogs and there was a newly dead hedgehog floating in the pond. The tadpoles were having a really good munch on that and there is hardly any thing left of it now. so they must be able to get the flesh off somehow

I will try and get a pic of a tadpole with one eye. They do have a mark there and it is kinda hard to notice but once they morph they have nothing there at all.

This is our first attempt to keep tadpoles. We fed them once a day on frozen lettuce. Perhaps that wasnt' enough. With so many of them being deformed we guessed we had done something wrong.

Cheers

oneeyedfrog

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Actually the omnivorous tadpole species ( eg golden bells, and greens) have lots of very tiny teeth in their lips, made of keratin. Weird, but true. Some other species also have a beak.

The amazing thing is how they have to metamorph their whole mouth into a much bigger frog mouth.

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Thanks MarkLB

I think I have managed to sort out the pics. We have very slow dial up.

Heres a pic of a one eyed frog - there are no scars just smooth skin and a dent where the eye should beth_oneeye.jpg

Heres some of the no eyed frog th_noeyes2.jpg

th_noeyes.jpg

Heres a couple of the two remaining tadpoles - very hard to see they both only have one "bump" th_tadpole.jpg

th_tadpole2.jpg

If anyone would like a frog or two- email me.

cheers

oneeyedfrog

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