What Happened to the Tadpole’s Tail?

Have you ever seen the ground move? This morning my family noticed a whole lot of movement on our driveway and in our yard. As we watched, we noticed tiny toads hopping all over! Each summer, toads mate and lay eggs in a nearby lake. Their eggs hatch into tadpoles. The tadpoles that survive (successfully dodging hungry fish or birds’ beaks) grow into adult toads and come up on shore. Today must have been the day when many of them decided to leave the lake behind and come inland—right to our yard! We call this “minitoad” season, when all the new “mini toads” are exploring the land.

 

We not only have toads in the yard, but in the house. Not because we left the front door open, but because six weeks ago, we carefully collected toad eggs from the lake and put them in an aquarium in our home. Two days after collecting them, the eggs began to wiggle. The following day, tadpoles emerged! At around five weeks old, the tadpoles began growing back legs. Now some are developing their front arms. Not long after, their tails will begin disappearing. But where do the tails go?

 

Tadpoles absorb their tails through a process called apoptosis. It’s a lot like recycling. The tadpoles recycle all the helpful stuff in their tails—like proteins—and reuse them to keep growing their arms, legs, and lungs to come up on land.

Apoptosis is often called “programmed cell death.” This important process is programmed into a tadpole's DNA to help them grow up. When we see programming like this, we know there is a programmer—God—who engineered such a wonderful design!

 

We have caught and kept tadpoles in previous years, but this is the first year we hatched them from eggs. Watching a tiny black egg hatch into a tadpole, grow, and develop into an adult toad is an amazing experience. It’s wonderful to think about how God wrote the DNA instructions into tadpoles—even inside their eggs—to hatch, grow, and recycle their tails.

 

Humans don’t go through metamorphosis or recycle body parts. But God gives us everything we need to grow up, too. He knows every chapter of our stories and he prepares us for what’s ahead. As a child, he helps us learn new things and face challenges. Even as adults, he gives us all we need to keep growing in character and faith.

“By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence.” 2 Peter 1:3 (NLT)

Dear God, help me to never stop growing—but to keep maturing in faith and trusting that you give me everything I need.

Fun Fact:

Toads can live for 10-15 years in the wild! In captivity, some can live up to 40 years.

RELATED EPISODE:

Did you miss last week's Field Notes?