specifically: a frog or toad larva that has a rounded body with a long tail bordered by fins and external gills soon replaced by internal gills and that undergoes a metamorphosis to the adult
Illustration of tadpole
tadpole in stages
Example Sentences
Recent Examples on the WebBut dialing in the proper tadpole habitat in captivity is hard work. Paighten Harkins, The Salt Lake Tribune, 8 Sep. 2022 His project, called Lunar Vertex, will investigate the magnetic anomaly in a region called Reiner Gamma, which contains a bright surface marking shaped like a tadpole. Rebecca Boyle, Scientific American, 28 July 2022 In the desert, where tadpole ponds dry up fast, female toads sometimes have to make drastic decisions. Katherine J. Wu, The Atlantic, 7 July 2022 The federal agencies worked with her and the Arizona Game and Fish Department to use her stock ponds for tadpole introduction. Lindsey Botts, The Arizona Republic, 13 Apr. 2022 The larvacean resembles a tiny tadpole and lives inside a palatial bubble of mucus that can reach up to a meter long.New York Times, 3 Apr. 2022 As water floods into the whale’s mouth, its throat pouch expands, leaving the whale looking like a bloated tadpole.New York Times, 20 Jan. 2022 This showed that the Australian cane toads had become aggressive cannibals, as eggs placed in with them were over 2.5 times more likely to be cannibalized before producing a tadpole. John Timmer, Wired, 29 Aug. 2021 By the time the hatchlings reach the tadpole stage and are too large to eat, their fellow tadpoles lose interest. John Timmer, Wired, 29 Aug. 2021 See More
Word History
Etymology
Middle English taddepol, from tode toad + polle head