Raising Tadpoles (Day 44) - Speed Demons
Day 44
The tadpoles have started identifying my face with food, as soon as I approach the tank, many of them will swim up along the side expecting more food to be put into the tank. This is expected since adult frogs do the same and the tadpoles are fairly far along in their development by this point, they're eyesight seems to have really improved in the last week While this is certainly cute, it can be a bit of a double-edged sword. One the one hand, it's even easier to geed the tadpoles when they press up against one side of the tank, on the other, it makes taking photos more difficult.
As the tadpoles have developed, they're grown in size, which is tremendously helpful when trying to take images (especially when using a 7 year old phone), however, they have also become quite the strong little swimmers. They're much faster in their excitement at the possibility of being fed and, combined with their quickened swimming, are able to swim fast enough to not even leave a blur in a photo at full speed.
The largest of the tadpoles are truly little speed demons at this point. The stark size differences amongst all the tadpoles despite all being the same age is impressive. An interesting thing to note is the fits and starts in which African Clawed Frogs seem to grow. Some grow mostly consistently while others, such as the tadpoles' mother, Tiny, can stay small for months before seeing a sudden growth spurt that results in them going from the runt of the litter to a giant that dwarfs the others.
In general, females will be much larger than males, with a nose to vent (head to bum) length of 5-6 inches versus 3-4 for males. It takes about 8-12 months for them to become sexually mature and about 18 months before they finish growing. Generally, I've found that you can sex them (determine whether they're male or female) at around 6 months, though this vary quite a bit among individuals. The species has a 50/50 split between males and females. Additionally, the sexual dimorphism doesn't end at size, males will have blackened palms and arms the darken during making season called 'nuptial pads,' while females will have a prominent pink (red during mating season) bump on their rump called 'cloacal lips' (where they lay eggs).