Tadpole Identification Table

[robertprice]

At the Spring Auction there was some uncertainty about the species of a tadpole. Fortunately there is a standard Tadpole Identification Table. They are classified by the number of upper and lower tooth rows. Just take the tadpole, put its mouth against a microscope slide, get your magnifying glass and count tooth rows, and voila! you can tell the species. (I had to memorize them all in grad school: we weren't allowed to use the table.)

[stevem]

tryed it would not sit still
HAHA

[robertprice]

It works on nearly all pollywogs, but they do wiggle, so sometimes you have to put them on their backs under a low power stereo or binocular microscope with a slide on their mouthparts to open them a little. Then you can see the upper and lower tooth rows. There may be 2 top and 3 bottom, or any cobination of 0-4 on top and on the bottom. They also have papillae on the sides of their mouth. We used to have a chart with all the faces of USA tadpoles. It's as bad as counting fin rays on fish.