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The oldest known fossil tadpole was a big baby

Much like modern bullfrogs, Notobatrachus degiustoi tadpoles rivaled the size of adults

An illustration of a large, tadpole with arms, from the side, swimming in a murky pond

More than 161 million years ago in Patagonia, the Notobatrachus degiustoi tadpole, illustrated here, would have grown up in a floodplain, living alongside Jurassic dinosaurs.

Gabriel Lío

By Jake Buehler

Tadpoles have been wriggling in the world’s ponds for at least 161 million years.

A newly detailed fossil finding pushes the record for earliest known tadpoles back an additional 30 million years, researchers report October 30 in Nature.