Metamorphosis is RAD :)

So, if you read a few postings ago....we caught 14 tadpoles and made them a little home in a fish tank and put it in the family room so we could watch their daily progress.  After the first few days, they all started to get tiny little legs, then arms.  I suppose I always knew this was how a frog got to be a frog, but I had never watched it happen. :)  We fed them fish food flakes and I was enthralled at their little mouths sucking the flakes in....all of them sucking at the top of the water was a cute noise to listen to. :)  After the back legs got looking like real frog legs....all long and speckled....the tadpoles seemed to swell up a little and you could almost see through their skin.  They looked like a frog inside a bubble.  Heather looked it up and one website said that tadpoles shed their lips and outer skin.  We actually watched as one front arm popped out, and then the other.  The tail actually shrinks until they look like this guy sitting on the rock.  He or she was our first frog.  :)  You can see his/her fellow tadpole with baby legs swimming beside him.  
We changed the water a couple of times because it was beginning to smell like fish in the house.  Ewwwwww.  So, yesterday I could count 5 frogs and 9 tadpoles...and I could smell the tank from across the room.  We decided it was time to release the frogs into the backyard.  Cory's kids are visiting- so we gave them and Emma each a frog and they let them go in the gardens.  Emma wanted to let hers go on the waterfall.  The rest of the tadpoles are staying in their tank outside in the shade.  The house doesn't smell fishy anymore.  I hate to blame it on the cute little frogs.....so I won't.  It was probably me that was smelling like fish.  Sorry everyone.  The picture above is my hand holding one of the newly changed frogs.  I wonder if they will get bigger...or if they are actually toads. Who knows- but it was sure fun to watch them change from fishy creatures to hopping creatures.  :)  

Namaste