Shane Gross
Cloud of Tadpoles
Western toad tadpoles, Canada, 2022
Category - Forests
A swarm of Western toad tadpoles (Anaxyrus boreas) threads through a forest of floating pond weeds in a mountain lake on Vancouver Island in British Columbia (Canada). This group is likely made up of siblings, as they tend to stay together after hatching from their eggs on their way to metamorphosis. A group of tadpoles is called a cloud; they stay together to confuse and overwhelm predators such as snakes and water bugs. The paperclip-sized tadpoles wiggle their way around the underwater forest, feeding on algae.
HONOURABLE MENTION
10 mm f/3.5-4.5 Lens - 1/320 sec at f/11 ISO 250