Did you know that a tadpole becomes a frog?

Tadpole

The common pond frog’s life begins in a quiet pond as one of many jelly-like eggs laid together in a mass by the mother frog.

In a few days, the egg hatched into a tiny, legless tadpole that breathes with gills, as fish do.  it has a long tail which it uses for swimming, and eat plants that grow in the water.

As the tadpole grows, first two hind legs and then two front legs appears.  After a time the tail begins to shrink and the tadpole loses its gills and gets lungs instead.  Then the tadpole comes to the surfaces of the water to breath air.

At last its tail disappears and the change is complete.

As a young frog, the creature is now ready to leave the water and begin a life as a hoping land animal.

Most tadpole make the change into frogs in the three months of spring.  Most toads begin life a tadpole, much like frogs do.

 

Visual source:  homeschooljourney

What is a roadrunner?

The roadrunner is a curious bird that lives in the deserts of the southwestern United States and Mexico. 

It is a slender, brown bird nearly two feet long, about half of which is tail, and has long legs. 

As its name tells, the roadrunner prefers to travel by running along the ground and by fast, gliding jumps at speed clocked at 15 miles per hour. 

It enjoys racing down a road in front of travelers and presents a comical sight as it sprints along with wings outspread, neck stretched forward and its long tail jerking up and down.  People on foot cannot hope to get ahead of it. 

When it tires, the bird abruptly turns aside and disappears in a clump of bushes. 

Nicknamed the “snake-killer,” it is more than a match for a rattlesnake.  Its diet includes lizards, mice and insects. -Johnny Wonder

Photo courtesy:  pinker

What is a sting ray?

 

 

Sting rays are flat, diamond-shaped fish having long ship like tails armed with poisonous stingers.  Sting rays live  in warm, shallow coastal waters and often lie of the bottom buried in the sand with only their eyes and breathing holes showing.

 

When swimming, the sting ray looks much like a bat flapping through the water.  The sting ray’s  stinger is really a sharp, bony spine near the base of its tail.  Many bathers have stepped sting ray whips its long tail about and the sharp spine is driven into the victim’s flesh, inflicting a painful wound.

 

The spine is barbed to that a victim cannot easily yank it loose after being stabbed.  Sting rays love on a diet of crabs, lobsters and other creatures of the bottom of the sea.  They crush their prey with their powerful grinder teeth.  Another name for the sting ray is “stingaree.”

 

Photo courtesy:  dicksandy