Canyon Tree Frog Tadpoles

Canyon Tree Frog (Hyla arenicolor) tadpole suspended in clear water of a shallow rock pool. I love the tadpole’s cast shadow in this photo.

Here are a few photos I took from an afternoon spent hanging around a temporary pool in the Santa Catalina Mountains, just outside of Tucson. The pool was on bedrock, with shallow but sheer canyon walls on two sides. One of the walls was ‘weeping’ water, and there were lots of wasps and bees on the wall.

I don’t know the name of the canyon, but always thought of it as ‘Wasp Canyon’ for that reason. It felt like an oasis amidst the Saguaro Cactus and thorn bushes.

Canyon Tree Frog (Hyla arenicolor) tadpole resting on the bottom of a shallow rock pool. Photo taken in Santa Catalina Mountains, 2005. There were adult Canyon Tree Frogs on the rock walls overlooking the pool.

The pool had probably been there for at least a couple months, judging from the luxurious algal growth. It was small, perhaps 15 meters long and 10 meters across. There were many (easily > 50) tadpoles in the poo. They looked to be of multiple age classes, too - some were starting to sprout hind legs, some were still small .

Canyon Tree Frog tadpoles in a temporary desert pool

Canyon Tree Frog

There were numerous frogs on the canyon walls around the pool.

Belostomatid (Giant Water Bug) male with eggs

I also saw what looked to be a Giant Water Bug (Belastomatid), his back packed with egg cases. The egg cases reminded me of missile silos on his back, for some reason.

’His back’ because in the Bellastomatidae that carry their eggs in this manner, the female lays her eggs on the back of the male, who guards and cares for them.

That Bellastomatid, and perhaps his mate, has probably been eating tadpoles out of the pool for quite some time.

I wonder how full of tadpoles the pool would have been a few weeks prior to this.