Abstract
SOME readers of NATURE will be interested to learn that tadpoles with large suctorial oral discs, enabling their possessors to adhere firmly to the rocks and boulders of mountain streams, have recently been discovered at Krantzkloop, in Natal, at an elevation of about 1500 to 1600 ft. They were found by the Rev. Fr. P. Boneberg, of Mariannhill, who kept them alive for some time, and observed their peculiar leech-like habit of sticking to one's fingers or to the sides of the vessel in which they were contained. Similar tadpoles have long been known from mountain streams in Borneo and other parts of the East, but so far as I can ascertain have not previously been recorded from Africa. However, the Natal tadpole belongs to the family Cystignathidæ (genus Heleophryne), whereas those of the Oriental region belong to the family Ranidæ so that the adaptations are no doubt quite independently evolved. A description of this tadpole will be given in the next issue of the Annals of the Natal Museum.
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HEWITT, J. Mountain Stream Tadpoles in Natal. Nature 91, 33 (1913). https://doi.org/10.1038/091033a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/091033a0
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