A few weeks ago I acquired two tadpoles that I discovered in a tank of feeder fish at a local pet store. I thought they were probably bullfrogs, like the two who are overwintering in aquariums set up in my living room. Now I'm not so sure... One has recently morphed into a frog and the other one almost has. Neither one looks like my bullfrogs when they were small. Does anyone here know what they might be? They are each only about an inch long.



There's still a little bit of a tail on this one.

Thanks for your help!

It's either a leopard frog, green frog, or pickerel frog. I would guess it's a leopard frog. Did the tadpoles look like this?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v492/kei...trosky/legs.jpg

At first, the mask on the first photo made me think wood frog but then I saw the second photo which looks a lot like my baby green frogs (in the head anyway). Your frogs have a bit more striping on the legs but I think they are green frogs. They could be leopard frogs maybe. They aren't pickerel frogs. Congrats!

I have a bunch of photos of my green frogs at http://www.fishpondinfo.com/frog2.htm#green

Yes, the tadpoles looked very much like that one. I found a few photos of leopard frogs on the internet and I can see some similarities. Their heads look a lot like those in Robyn's baby green frog photos, too. Hmmm.... Maybe I'll have to wait until they are a little larger before I can tell for sure.

In the meantime, what is the best thing to feed them? They don't seem too interested in the fish flakes anymore. I'm trying some teeny tiny crickets but I'm not sure if they're interested in those either. Although they are set up in a 50/50 aquarium neither of them have ever come out of the water.

They start eating 2 days after their Whole tail is gone. No adult frog will eat fish flakes, their food must be alive! They will only eat baby crickets if the crickets are on land, your pebbles still have water on the land area. Try getting a dryer land area. You could also try waxworms. As they get older, they will get more aggressive when eating and it wont matter where the food is!

They do have a completely dry land area. In both my photos, the frogs are in shallow water which slopes up to dry land. I couldn't take a photo of them on the land because they haven't yet come out of the water. I will give the waxworms a try.

Frogs only eat live foods as "guest" said. Some foods to try include:

For small frogs/newly morphed frogs: pinhead or small crickets, wingless fruitflies, blackworms, tiny waxworms, baby mealworms, pill bugs, etc.

For frogs as they are big enough to eat them: earthworms (trout worms are pretty small with night crawlers being too big except for huge frogs), crickets, mealworms, king mealworms (for big frogs), moths, beetles, flies, small fish (although I've never seen my frogs eat fish), etc.

Your young frogs aren't bullfrogs but as adults, those frogs can even eat mice and birds.

Some of these bugs are sold in stores, others you can catch outside (try to avoid any that may have been sprayed with toxins).

It may be a while before you can verify which species of frog that you have but the care is the same.

My page at http://www.fishpondinfo.com/frog3.htm has more on feeding frogs and keeping them indoors.

Yes, I know frogs only eat live food. My concern was that once they morphed into frogs, they didn't seem interested in eating anything at all. I think "Guest" was correct in saying they start eating 2 days after their whole tail is gone. Today they both started eating the pinhead crickets.

By the way, I posted here last fall about Froggy, the little bullfrog I discovered living in the small decorative pond near my patio. She (at least I think it's a "she") has been overwintering in my house. Wow! Has she ever grown! Now I need two hands to pick her up. I started her out in a 30 gallon aquarium, but she quickly out grew it. So I moved her into a 65 gallon aquarium in December. I'm still working on her new big pond as the weather permits. I hope she likes it this summer.


"Lilly" sure looks a lot different from that first picture of her I posted last August!

Wow, she's getting big! Bullfrogs sure can eat a lot! I think it's a girl too since the ear drum isn't very big or intense.

They sure can! I've also acquired a 2nd bullfrog "Willow" back in December who's overwintering inside, too. They're each in separate tanks. She's not quite as big as Lilly, but she's no light weight. Those two have insatiable appetites! Here's a photo of Willow. I'm guessing she's female, but I'm not 100% sure.

Their really nice looking! Too bad my tadpoles will have no home when they become adults. :(

That was me.

That's sad... What will happen to them?

I was thinking of letting them go in a nearby pond, but I think thats illegal, and I dont want to be caught doing that! But if nobody is there, that seems like my only option. I was told they were leopard frog tadpoles, thats why I got them. When I found out they were bullfrogs, I knew once they turned into frogs, I would have no room for them. :( But I figured I could at least raise them to frogs, I didnt want them to die. I would be happy to give them to someone, but nobody I know that cares for frogs lives in New York. And all places that have bullfrogs, which is everywhere wont take anymore, except for a laboratory, which uses them for disssection. :( So, hopefully within this month mabye someone will turn up that can care for them. :)

Yeah, I'm not sure if the second bullfrog is a female or not.

It's probably technically illegal to release a bullfrog to a pond from where it did not originate or if the frog had contacted other animals. I suggest contacting your local pond club. There are many clubs in NY, and I'm sure someone could adopt the frogs.

I agree. They look like our "bronze" subspecies of Green Frog. They all look a little different from one another. Last year, we had 3 that were different enough for us to give them names. They're real cool.

I'm thinking they're probably leopard frogs. Here's a photo I took a few days ago. They're about 1 1/2 inches big now and their spots are becoming more distinct.

Wow, they are really nice looking frogs! Yeah, they look like leopard frogs. Keep posting more pictures as they grow larger, I like to see how they grow.

Yep, I too think they are leopard frogs. When tiny, a lot of frogs do look similar. It seemed more likely that they were green frogs because you're more likely to come across them at stores and even in some spots in the wild. Now that they've grown a bit, and we have nice out-of-water photos, I can say they aren't green frogs and seem to be leopard frogs. As adults, they only come to water to breed so they will enjoy a mostly land habitat. Pickerel frogs are similar in some ways but their spots are more rectangular. Enjoy the cuties!

Yeah, they are leopard frogs. My tadpole turned into a bullfrog, and it does not look like your frogs.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v492/kei...osky/bubba2.jpg

photobucket

Actually, that frog doesn't look like a bullfrog to me. I can't readily identify it. How big is it? From which state did it originate?

i see some nice leopard frogs up above -

are they the southern or northern variety?

i wish i could buy the southern variety - but they are usually not specific in the stores

Good question! I am guessing southern, but don't know for sure.

My frog is a bullfrog, it just metamorphosised from a tadpole, so it doesnt fully have it's adult coloring yet. I live in the United States, in NY, and the tadpole was sent in from a goldfish farm with the goldfish, which is also somewhere in NY.