the.com/polliwog
a tadpole with a Viking name, busy dissolving its own tail into a frog
means A polliwog is a tadpole — the legless, swimming larval stage of a frog or toad, before its legs sprout and its tail vanishes.
from From Middle English 'polwygle,' a marriage of 'pol' (head — the same root that gives us 'poll,' as in a head-count, and 'tadpole,' literally a 'toad-head') and 'wygle' (to wiggle). So a polliwog is, charmingly and literally, a 'wiggle-head' — which is exactly what it looks like. The 'Viking' flavor of the essence is a bit of poetic license: the word is homegrown English, not Norse, though that wiggling head certainly earns its swagger.
- name origin
- middle english for head-wiggler
- tail trick
- reabsorbs its tail, recycling it as energy
- breathing swap
- trades gills for lungs mid-life
- navy slang
- sailors crossing the equator's first time
- diet shift
- goes from herbivore to ruthless carnivore
leopard frog tadpole — common north american polliwog used in schools and research since the 1800s
bullfrog tadpole — largest north american tadpole, can reach 6 inches before metamorphosis
african clawed frog tadpole — xenopus laevis tadpole widely used in developmental biology labs worldwide