Chronicles of an Animal Science Major

The Giant Tadpole That Never Got Its Legs

By Katie L. Burke

A record-breaking, 10-inch-long whopper of a bullfrog tadpole was discovered by a crew of ecologists in a pond in Arizona.

The biggest tadpole ever found—at a whopping 10 inches long—was discovered by a crew of ecologists in a pond in the Chiricahua Mountains of  Arizona. Alina Downer, an intern at the American Museum of Natural History’s Southwestern Research Station, came across the monster bullfrog tadpole as her crew was draining a manmade pond as part of a habitat restoration project for the endangered Chiricahua leopard frog.

As the water level lowered,  Downer and her colleagues were assessing what organisms were left in the muddy shallows that she likened to “chocolate soup.” Downer says, “I  was fishing around with my hands while walking in the water, and I felt   something large, smooth, and wriggly—which was unexpected, since the only other fish in the pond were about an inch long.”

As  an avid naturalist, Downer’s first instinct was curiosity. “At first I thought it was a giant catfish,” she says, grinning at the uncanny memory. “Whatever it was, I knew I had to grab it.” She herded the  slippery creature into shallower water until she could capture it. To her surprise, it turned out to be “an enormous monster of a tadpole”—so big she had to hold it with two hands…