The biphasic life cycle– an aquatic tadpole transforming into a terrestrial adult– is a key feature of most amphibians’ life history, but Gould et al. (2025) found that habitat switching is also occurring during the larval phase in Limnodynastes peronii. During two separate amphibian surveys on Kooragang Island, Australia, the authors found tadpoles resting, motionlessly, on floating aquatic vegetation at the surface of freshwater ponds. When poked, these limbless tadpoles wriggled back into the water. The authors offer two possible adaptive beaching behaviour hypotheses to explain their observations: antipredator behavior or to escape from a hypoxic environment. More investigation is needed, but these observations open up more avenues to better understand the diversity of behavior in amphibians.

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