Imperiled Gopher Frog, Lithobates capito We will soon be moving our captive reared Gopher Frogs to the outdoor mesocosms at the Field Research Center nicknamed #MetamorphosisMeadow Hopefully soon the echoing snore of male Gopher Frogs in the mood for love will be heard throughout our Buckhead neighborhood.

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Ask the frog staff: How many tadpoles actually survive into adulthood?

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Hi Mark. A frog friend and I were at the lily pond today and it was rife with tadpoles of various sizes and stages. Two questions: 1) It looked like the two ducks might be feeding on them ... do they? 2) How many tadpoles actually survive to frog adulthood? — Christine C. This particular topic has come up a lot recently, and one of our visitors beautifully photographed a heron eating a rather large bullfrog out of the lily pond in the Children's Garden . It was a graphic interaction, but demonstrates how vital amphibians are in food webs and one of the reasons we use to illustrate how important it is to keep amphibians around. Almost everything eats them, or their tadpoles, or their eggs ... or all three.  Many animals eat frogs exclusively (including some frog species!), and the herons at the Garden obviously love them. I have seen ducks eating tadpoles quite rapidly. In fact, my amphibian class last summer quantified how quickly different aquatic birds could ...
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