{"id":33401,"date":"2022-12-11T03:07:51","date_gmt":"2022-12-11T08:07:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/?p=33401"},"modified":"2022-12-11T03:07:51","modified_gmt":"2022-12-11T08:07:51","slug":"living-in-the-past-v","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/2022\/12\/living-in-the-past-v\/","title":{"rendered":"Living in the past V"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/handful.jpg\" alt=\"author&#039;s hand in shallow pool filled with tadpoles\" width=\"730\" height=\"487\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-3936\" \/><br clear=\"all\"\/>In case this is a little too eye-bending, this is my own hand dipping into an absolute buttload of tadpoles &#8211; we needed a spring image in here at least once. This was from back in 2011 at a local park, and the pond was small, but not <em>that<\/em> small &#8211; the tadpoles had instead followed the flow into an area where they couldn&#8217;t easily swim back out again, and so were queuing up a bit. These are likely American toads (<em>Anaxyrus americanus<\/em>,) and I can tell that by the number of vertebrae in the tails. No, I lie &#8211; I&#8217;m not even sure they <em>have<\/em> vertebrae in their tails &#8211; but judging from the time of year and the past observations of this pond as a breeding ground for the species, it&#8217;s a fairly safe bet.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a lot of tadpoles, but then again, just about everything in the area eats toads, so it works out<strong>;<\/strong> species with high retribution rates before adulthood tend to produce a lot of offspring to account for this. Which makes me wonder<strong>:<\/strong> do amphibious species with more significant defensive mechanisms, like the poison dart frogs, produce fewer offspring because they have a higher survival rate? <em>Do<\/em> they have a higher survival rate, or are they too confident in their badass reputations and die instead from being stupid, like taking selfies on cliff edges? Inquiring minds want to know&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In case this is a little too eye-bending, this is my own hand dipping into an absolute buttload of tadpoles &#8211; we needed a spring image in here at least once. This was from back in 2011 at a local park, and the pond was small, but not that small &#8211; the tadpoles had instead [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[7009,1592,2906,596,7008],"class_list":["post-33401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nature","category-photo","tag-minds-right","tag-american-toad","tag-anaxyrus-americanus","tag-tadpoles","tag-too-many-of-em"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33401\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}