Metamorphosis: Amphibian Nature Documentary

I live on the edge of the Rocky Mountains near a forgotten wetland that I decided to explore upon closer inspection I noticed that a drama was happening here there was even something going on that couldn't be explained so I decided to film it for a whole year to bring you the amazing tale of this wetland and the animals that live here the final days of winter this seems like just an abandoned quarry the left unbothered Nature has begun to reclaim it as part of herself much of the life here originates underwater but most of us can only ponder what lives beneath the surface so let's take a look underwater the ice has just melted besides a tangle of plants and algae there doesn't seem to be much life down here but it's still early spring before the sun's rays have clouded the water with plankton and weeks away from the breeding frenzy of the amphibians in the coming months this view will change drastically however there is an intriguing creature in this water now that's been lurking beneath the ice patiently waiting for spring to arrive but to find it I must return at night in this deep pool they're not rare or even hard to find but capturing good footage of one with camera gear pushing through the water is difficult here's one almost here's another it looks like it'll take a few tries before I'm successful by late March it's still early to find reptiles out but an unseasonable warm day rouses one out for a bask the painted turtle usually inhabitants of ponds and lakes painted turtles here could be remnants of when this quarry was an intact wetland or a few of this nomadic species could have migrated here but for painted turtles there's an advantage to living in a wetland like this the endless sunny banks of loose soil make excellent nesting sites time for another dive immediately after submersion they're swimming in open water is the animal that I'm trying to film incredibly this time it seems to be tolerating my camera this little water monster is the tiger salamander this one is in its larval form and these deep pools are full of them it's on a hunting excursion and it actually seems to be using my lights to catch prey they don't bite down on prey but rapidly opening their mouth that causes a suction that vacuums it up the three fingers projecting from its head are gills and they're lined with bushy filaments that harvest oxygen from the water tiger salamander larvae also have lungs which they use to control buoyancy in the water after many nights observing and filming them I noticed something bizarre and biologically puzzling about these tiger salamanders that sets them apart from others the progression of spring animates the biological rhythms of the organisms that live here by early April green shoots of cattails emerge from the mud and slowly replace the yellow remnants of winter as the day's lengthen and become warmer the sound of life emanates from all around the wetland amphibians have emerged from their muddy winter retreats and begin to chorus this is the Woodhouse's toad he's searching for the perfect spot along the edge of this pool from which to call one where he'll be able to outdo the call of other males and a spot where females are likely to want to lay their eggs he heads to water and begins calling the moment he emerges from hibernation females are attracted to males with the deepest calls because it means they're more fit however tonight there's a small problem of that being cold-blooded and FIB Ian's need warm temperatures to achieve vigorous activity it's only 45 degrees Fahrenheit and in this chill males can only muster a pathetic call there will be no females called in tonight along the Rockies spring and winter dance for several months together before spring finally takes lead a quick mid-april snow isn't fatal to the animals that have emerged just to delay it soon melts and the moisture that it brings is welcome there's one organism in these parts whose emergence marks the true onset of spring when the past flower blooms in the foothills spring has arrived this tiger salamander larva is one and the same species as this terrestrial tiger salamander after hatching and developing under water this tiger salamander larva is supposed to metamorphose into this land dwelling adult the biologically puzzling thing about tiger salamanders here is that they remain in their larval form and don't leave the water it's called neoteny and it could be happening because there are no fish at this wetland fish are present in virtually all permanent waters and they prey on salamanders and their eggs until none left to avoid fish tiger salamanders usually inhabit wetlands that dry up periodically but there they must metamorphose before the water is gone life under water can be easier than life on land though and to never have to leave it would be ideal so tiger salamanders would have the option of not having to metamorphose at a wetland that never dried up and was devoid of fish and that is exactly what we have here but there could be more to the story larvae living in water are somehow able to detect if the land around them has become inhospitable and in response they can become neo 10 'ok remaining in their aquatic form perhaps the quarry being dug up around them triggered this response however both of these explanations are called to scrutiny because some tiger salamanders here do metamorphose this is a newly metamorphose tiger salamander that hasn't left the water yet the stimulus that causes only some tomato morphus is a mystery but it does have advantages as long as some salamanders are leaving the water and others come here to breed there's constant gene flow which prevents inbreeding and with so many larvae concentrated in these pools perhaps some individuals find it easier to metamorphose and head for land where there's less competition this one rests beneath a bloom of dancing zooplankton metamorphosed adults and neo ten o'clock I can actually breed with each other breeding has been happening over the past few weeks and eggs are now beginning to hatch these are newly hatched tiger salamanders those destined for land will acquire black and yellow stripes and begin leaving the water as early as summer's end May and the wetland becomes increasingly green but not because of rain these plants grow directly out of the water ironically gray clouds chug overhead day after day without releasing their payload wetlands depend on spring rains and their absence comes with consequences by now the water should be teeming with tadpoles yet female Woodhouse's toads won't arrive until after heavy rains males have been calling endlessly for over a month now calling takes great energy and the male's become thin and Restless they're not fighting but pouncing on anything that could be a female just as tiger salamanders don't breed where their fish would houses toads lay their eggs in the shallow pools where there are no tiger salamanders it's becoming uncertain whether females will arrive in what's turning out to be the beginnings of a drought a pair of all spray nests near the wetland just back from wintering in South America a short flight from here the cats Laputa River gushes out of the Rockies full of trout they make fishing trips up and down the river throughout the day from April through June a clicking sound emanates from the wetland that's so loud my ears go numb after each night of filming it should come from a beast of a frog with mighty lungs but instead it's the tiny chorus frog barely the size of a quarter during the mating season chorus frogs congregate by the hundreds but are so vigilant and well camouflaged that even a persistent herpetologist might not find them they're the most naturally far-ranging North American frog and persist even above treeline in the Rocky Mountains by late May the thunderstorms still haven't come and neither have the female wood houses totes males have not given up lying low in surrounding fields females carry around a heavy burden of eggs waiting to be laid but the shallow pools begin to dry up and the water recedes from their margins one female apparently unable to wait any longer has laid her eggs they hatch after the water has dwindled and will not make it difficult for me to fathom it seems these will be the only of the Woodhouse's toads offspring this season and it's hard to watch them perish in the end human sentiment corrupts nature's logic as it always does one day in the first week of June intense winds push forth an atmosphere thick with humidity the animals seem to be in a state of anticipation something large approaches you plump with eggs the female Woodhouse's toads finally begin their migration to the wetland tonight she navigates to the same wetland where she was once a tadpole by sense of smell where the unique odor of the wetland was imprinted on her as a juvenile blind toads can still find their way back to their wetland but toads with a blocked smell wander aimlessly in the fields around the wetland tiger salamanders emerge from mammal burrows they've spent weeks several feet underground waiting for rain many perilously crossroads to get to where they're going and often the outcome is probably what you've imagined after an evening of hunting this salamander is headed back into town where he lives he lives there because it provides something necessary for his survival along the way he takes heed not to cross paths with a hungry garter snake or raccoon they aren't deterred by the mild but foul-tasting poison that his black and yellow spots Warner you finally he's arrived shelter with unlimited space that he didn't even have to build himself here at the prairie dog town the female Woodhouse's toads have arrived at the wetland she found the call of this male most attractive and as soon as she enters the water he'll embrace her the female can be twice as large as the male this very firm hold is called a m-- plexus and it positions the male to bathe her eggs and sperm she expels them into the water he's doing it wrong sometimes this bond lasts until sunrise however long it takes to lay her ten thousand eggs the next morning there are dozens of egg strands tangled in the shallow pools and they'll begin hatching within four days June thunderstorms continue almost daily the rain replenishes the drying pools and spreads green to wherever the water disperses the hatchling tiger salamander larvae have grown to almost 2 inches and ones that don't become neo tenets have until September to keep growing the kill deer named after its call seems like a nervous bird but when given its privacy is quite content the Woodhouse's toads eggs begin to hatch it's more of a transformation really than hatching and once the jellies surrounding the egg dissolves the change into free-swimming tadpole takes only two days the shallow pools become filled with tens of thousands of tadpoles they'll graze on algae for the next month or so until they metamorphose into toadlets while filming on the edge of a pool I get too close to the nest of this male red-winged blackbird and he's not having it sometimes man's modification of the landscape can benefit animals a large sand piles around is by pools mimics a Ledge beside a river and the aptly named Bank swallow finds it a perfect place to live their burrow may be several feet deep and it culminates in a nesting chamber Bank swallow colonies can contain thousands of birds and they're extremely sociable they feed throughout the day but it does they depart as one brand flock taking to the sky to hunt flying insects by the onset of July the frantic breeding period of the Woodhouse's toads and chorus frogs is over and a relative calm befalls the wetland calm except for one rascal amorously running amuck in the pools below the bullfrog during their breeding season males or rabbits and are willing to try mating with just about anything this one is attracted to my camera come here - deena me a clump of algae such sucks yeah my boot and me where are you the bullfrog is native to the eastern United States but has been introduced into Colorado and much of the rest of the world where its adaptability and great science let it easily out-compete local frogs you want to go eat some grasshoppers with me later I think you do by this time the countryside usually begins to yellow but continued thunderstorms have kept it green the rain has filled the bottom of the wetland with a thin layer of water deep and shallow pools that were once separated are now conjoined capitalizing on this opportunity a Leviathan of a tiger salamander larva prowls up into the shallows he can smell a specific morsel here that's more nourishing than the spiny water bugs he's used to eating he slides into the perfect spot and waits patiently tadpoles this is why would houses toads avoid breeding in salamander infested waters there are so many tadpoles spread so wide that the few salamanders who do engage in this feeding strategy won't make any dent at all large 12 inch larvae like this are sometimes cannibals by mid-july the rains have stopped abruptly and the daytime temperatures sizzle the overflown water recedes and the shallow pools begin to dry up tadpoles are now toad 'lets leaving the water having been laid so late it was a rush metamorphosis and some didn't make it in time these are thousands of desiccated tadpoles and one lone survivor the size of a pebble August is a time when flower turns to seed the summer days reach their hottest and the landscape becomes brittle however at this time the otherwise drab landscape becomes punctuated by the wild sunflower the ground of the wetland is now animate with bouncing toadlets whose ambition it is to become plump before autumn it looks like this one's achieved that as with most baby animals there's a gauntlet of hungry predators the toadlets must avoid one is the garter snake there are several species of garter snake at the wetland and this is the western terrestrial garter snake at 30 inches it's not a large city so she preys on smaller animals at the wetland that means n fib Ian's the garter snake gorges on toad salamanders and chorus frogs but she gets full easily and most will evade her living up to tree line in the Rocky Mountains and well north into Canada garter snakes inhabit the coldest climates of any reptile but reptile legs depend on the warmth of the surrounding environment to develop and don't work in cold climates so the garter snake has evolved beyond the egg and gives birth to live young that way she's able to chase the sunlight throughout the day and move to warm spots to keep the babies inside her toasty as they develop the Summer Sun has been harsh and by the end of August there's been no rain since mid-july the hot dry days have scorched the shallow pools into crust the deep holes however are still intact and teeming with life it's not the noticeable animals like toads and salamanders that perpetuate this ecosystem without the overlooked life-forms plankton and insects many larger animals would have no food from which to live these tiny animals are zou plankton and they're the energy converter of the wetland plant matter is where the energy of the wetland is stored and grazing zooplankton consume it to grow Wenzhou plankton are eaten by bigger animals like salamander larvae they have passed the energy of plants into the food chain these are Daphnia which consume microscopic plants sunny days allow their plant food sources to bloom which caused the Daphnia to multiply into great clouds from above a damselfly nymph drifts into this cloud and capture several Daphnia for lunch copepods live in every aquatic ecosystem on earth and form the greatest biomass of any animal this is an ostracod also called the sea trip not really a shrimp but a tiny bivalve crustacean protected by two halves of a shell like a clam ostracods are detritivores meaning they feed on decomposing matter and so the so plankton are eaten by the next echelon on the food chain which are often predatory insect larvae the Dragonfly nymph uses extendable mouth parts to seize its prey here one hunts ostracods the apparent fins on the end of this damselfly names abdomen are actually kills another hunter this is an insect you saw in motion earlier the backs whipper some of us who may be repulsed at the sight of these creatures may be delighted by the beautiful things into which they metamorphose both aerial hunters damselflies and dragonflies can be distinguished because thinner damselflies perch with their wings closed and dragonflies with wings open by September activity at the wetland begins to diminish plants die off after their seed has been dropped and the soundtrack of the wetland falls silent as most birds are enroute to warmer climates after devoting all of their resources to breeding in spring the Woodhouse's toads have had the entire summer to concentrate on becoming fat hibernation begins in October newly metamorphosed tiger salamanders that haven't become neo 10 ik have just left the water they're about to embark on an emigration away from the wetland to find mammal burrows in which to overwinter not enthused by my visit this one chooses to take refuge back into the water in October some things reveal their truest beauty only as they wither when plans stop producing green chlorophyll ever-present golden pigments are now able to show through the first snow comes in late October the wetland becomes tranquil as it gently falls into winters cold cradle by December the polls are ice-covered and the ground frozen beneath the ice neo tannic tiger salamanders still move about although to a lesser degree underwater frogs linger in a state of torpor buried in the mud and the Woodhouse's toads are hidden in crevices and beneath rocks entrenched in the soil until vernal warmth returns again the wetland and its creatures will rest for five months our conclusion brings us right back to where we began winters end and in just a few weeks the amphibians will emerge and begin calling all over again but whenever n fib Ian's of the topic it has to be noted that right now they're undergoing a rapid die-off around the world it's happening so fast that in only the past three decades 130 species of amphibians have gone extinct habitat loss climate change and pollution our major causes but perhaps the most urgent is a human spread and phibian plague called Kittredge I could devote an entire film to what we can all do to help an fib Ian's but for now you can help simply by researching and phibian extinction and Kitteridge you Oh Oh Oh

Channel: Bryan Maltais

Views: 645,791

Rating: 4.8483186 out of 5

Keywords: amphibians, Discovery Channel, tiger salamander, Animal Planet, frogs, toads, reptiles, neoteny, nature documentaries, herping, BBC, neotenic, national geographic

Id: bHwAguHqYnU

Length: 36min 12sec (2172 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 13 2012

Reddit Comments

[u/MooingTricycle]

So great!!! Shared it on fb too

[u/HAtoYou]

Thank you for sharing. It was very enjoyable with a good message at the end.

[u/[deleted]]

Thanks for sharing. The entire doc was great. Filled with tons of info and very accurate as far as I could tell. Great work. Are you planning on making more documentaries?