Since 1992
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By Barbara McAllister
Word of the Day: Pollywog
A pollywog (also spelled polliwog) is the same thing as a tadpole. It’s the larval stage of toads and frogs, the wiggly heads with tails seen abundantly in freshwater streams and ponds. “Pollywog” sounds like a made-up Dr. Seuss name, but it shares the same Middle English root as the more scientific sounding “tadpole.” Pol is the word for head, evident in both tadpole and pollywog. The “tad” part in tadpole is from a Middle English word for toad and the “wog” in pollywog is from the Middle English “wiglen,” to wiggle. Both are interchangeably descriptive terms for the wriggly aquatic youngsters.
Tadpoles or pollywogs begin life in water as eggs. Common frogs can lay between 3,000 to 6,000 eggs at a time but only about 1 in 50 will survive to hatch into tadpoles. It takes about 14 weeks for a tadpole to develop into a tiny frog. At four weeks the tadpole starts to lose its gills and develop teeth. Soon after, their back legs develop, then their front legs. In about 6 weeks, the mouth starts to widen and the eyes start to bulge out. The tail eventually disappears. When the lungs finish developing the tiny frog makes its way onto land. Frogs and toads are amphibians, which means they live their lives both in water and on land. While typically, frogs breed and spend their juvenile stage in the water, they spend much of their adult lives on land, although they need to be near water. They will die if their skin dries out. Frogs absorb water through their skin rather than drinking it.
The word amphibian comes from the Greek words meaning “both lives” (amphi + bios), referring to their ability to live on both land and water. The English words for frog and toad are of uncertain and debated origin. Globally, nations use similar descriptive language for pollywogs that capture the large head and the wriggling movement similar to the English word pollywog. For the Dutch it’s little fatheads. In Iceland they’re known as tail toads, in Sweden they’re frog fry and in Finland they’re known as club heads. Italy calls them little twirlers and in Norway they are known as rump trolls.
