The transition from tadpole to juvenile frog is never easy — legs sprout, tails shrink and lungs develop for a life on land, all while being hunted by fish and other predators. Talk about growing pains.
But in the Aquarium of the Pacific's frog nursery, hundreds of critically endangered mountain yellow-legged frogs and tadpoles live comfortably under the watchful eye of animal conservationists before being released into the wild. Once the most populous vertebrate in their mountain habitat, the wild population of these tiny amphibians had dwindled to fewer than 200 by 2021.
