Site of the Week
Whose tadpole is it? http://www.whose-tadpole.net/
No, not a new and bizarre addition to the world of improvisational gameshows, but rather an informative, if slightly slimy, addition to the world of wildlife websites. We’re just about in the middle of spawning time for UK amphibians like the common frog and the smooth newt, who do most of their reproducing between March and May, but there’s never a wrong time to click over to this site and learn about tadpoles, their lives, and the lives of the adults they become.
The main features of the site are the identification keys. If you’ve stumbled across something amphibian - spawn, tadpole or adult - then, with a bit of careful thought, you should have no trouble pointing and clicking your way to a positive ID. Any problems or questions can be posted to the highly efficient webmaster on the small but perfectly formed discussion board. The ID factfiles can also be accessed from the main menu, so you don’t have to go through strings of yes-no questions to browse the illustrations and brief natural history info.
Just one small complaint: the site does state that it is ‘the waterproof field guide to Central European amphibians.’ Now, I took my laptop into a swamp, and now it doesn’t work…
Richard Northover
Info-content ** Readability ** Appearance ** User friendliness *** Kids ** Plug-ins none