by Karina Hunter

A closer look at the tadpoles.

Residents of Manitouwadge will be privy to an uninvited auditory performance. As July ends, residents may need to close their windows at night to keep out the increasingly raucous, high pitched sound of croaking frogs that make their home on the shores of Manitouwadge and Perry lakes.

Budding biologist, Emeraude Charron examines a tadpole found in Manitouwadge Lake.

This year’s tadpole population in Manitouwadge Lake seems significantly larger than past years and has had budding biologists flocking to the beaches of Manitouwadge Lake all week, nets and buckets in hand, to admire, collect and investigate the tiny creatures.  As I approached the crowd of frog fanatics, the water was black with recently hatched tadpoles of the Spring Peepers orPseudacris crucifer species which are widespread throughout Canada and the US and are responsible for the sometimes deafening sound of ‘peeping’ that can be heard at night during summer months in Manitouwadge coming from both Manitouwadge and Perry Lake. 

Shore of Manitouwadge Lake, black with tadpoles.

What does this seemingly larger than average population of tadpoles mean to residents? Other than late night melodies from the males of the species, once they mature into frogs in about 40 days, not much. They don’t feast on blackflies or mosquitoes exclusively as one might hope.  As larvae, tadpoles feed on algae and other aquatic organisms while adult‘peepers’ who typically measure between 20 – 30 mm in length, eat small arachnids (spiders) and insects such as ants, and water bugs in addition to mosquitoes and blackflies.