Well what is a tadpole? I’m glad you asked! The name “tadpole” is from Middle English taddepol, made up of the elements tadde, “toad”, and pol, “head.”  Similarly, “polliwog” and “pollywiggle” are from Middle English polwigle, made up of the same pol, “head” and wiglen, “to wiggle”. Well maybe Charles Darwin was looking in a lake and watched some tapoles as they went through their period of metamorphosis.

Tadpoles are baby frogs that are young amphibians that live in the water. During the tadpole stage of the amphibian life cycle, baby frogs most respire by means of autonomous external or internal gills. They do not usually have arms or legs until the transition to adulthood, and typically have dorsal or fin-like appendages and a tail with which they swim by lateral undulation, similar to most fishes. As a tadpole grows and develops into a baby frog, it most commonly metamorphosizes by gradually growing limbs (usually the legs first, followed by the arms) and then (most commonly in the case of frogs) outwardly absorbing its tail by apoptosis. This is called a programed cell death. The death of cells that occurs as a normal and controlled part of an organism’s growth or development. This takes place in the water after they hatch as tadpoles and not on dry land.  

I think that is very interesting because unlike the human baby in the womb of it’s mother, the metamorphoses by growing limbs takes place when they begin to mature in the womb. This is not connected in any way to evolutionism. They reach sexual identification and can be identified as a female or a male while in the womb and human babies don’t have tails like tadpoles or baby monkeys. Babies are produced in pro-creation after the likeness and in the image of Adam who was created in the image and likeness of the Triune God. 

Also the distinct differences between human babies they do not go through the stage of axolotl  like the tadpole (juvenile) and adult (frog, toad, salamander, etc.). The axolotl exhibit a property called neoteny, meaning that they reach sexual maturity without undergoing metamorphosis.

 So when I saw the tadpole I remember what one of my auntie used to sing about them. Her song always ended with “pollywog doodle all day!” Whatever! 

Image via Wikipedia

Catching and Keeping Tadpoles