Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 November 1893 — Tadpoles that Stand on Their Heads. [ARTICLE]

Tadpoles that Stand on Their Heads.

The tadpole is not, perhaps, a creature which commands universal admiration; but there is a healthy brood of tadpoles now at the Zoo, which are, for many reasons, deserving of notice. To begin with, they have not the black and forbidding aspect of the tadpole which is one of the common objects of a country walk in March. These tadpoles are largely colorless, and have an engaging way of balancing themselves on their heads, instead of wriggling up to each other like our familiar acquaintances. Their chief merit, however, is the fact that they are the off-spring of their parents. They come from eggs deposited by an African frog, which has the rather doubtful distinotion of Seeing more like a newt than any other frog; this frog, known technically as Xenopus levis, has never before condescended to breed at the Zoo, or in captivity, bo its young were very imperfectly known. As the frog itself is one of those links in creation which are fortunately not missing, a good deal of interest attaches to the tadpole, which might be fairly expected to go one better than its parents. It does, as a matter of fact, realize these expectations, for it has a pair of long feelers on its chin, whioh are exactly like the barrels of fishes. The frog has resemblances to animals lower in the scale, and the tadpole has affinities to animals a stage lower again.—[London News.