Vol. 20 No. 2 (2025)
Short Note

First report of overwintering tadpoles in the endemic Italian agile frog Rana latastei

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  • Andrea Melotto,
  • Antonio Serafino Melotto,
  • Gentile Francesco Ficetola,
  • Raoul Manenti,
  • Mattia Falaschi
Andrea Melotto
Department of Environmental Science and Policy, Università degli Studi di Milano, Via Celoria 10, 20133 Milan, Italy
Antonio Serafino Melotto
Via Magni 41, 22044, Inverigo, Italy
Gentile Francesco Ficetola
Department of Environmental Science and Policy, Università degli Studi di Milano, Via Celoria 10, 20133 Milan, Italy
Raoul Manenti
Department of Environmental Science and Policy, Università degli Studi di Milano, Via Celoria 10, 20133 Milan, Italy
Mattia Falaschi
Department of Environmental Science and Policy, Università degli Studi di Milano, Via Celoria 10, 20133 Milan, Italy
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/a_h-17665

Published 2025-07-21

Keywords

  • Amphibians,
  • anurans,
  • breeding,
  • climate change,
  • global warming,
  • froglet,
  • phenology,
  • reproduction
    • ...More
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How to Cite

Melotto, A., Melotto, A. S., Ficetola, G. F., Manenti, R., & Falaschi, M. (2025). First report of overwintering tadpoles in the endemic Italian agile frog Rana latastei. Acta Herpetologica, 20(2), 251–257. https://doi.org/10.36253/a_h-17665

Copyright (c) 2025 Andrea Melotto, Antonio Serafino Melotto, Gentile Francesco Ficetola, Raoul Manenti, Mattia Falaschi

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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Abstract

Climate change is affecting organism seasonality patterns, and this can drive phenological shifts in key traits, including breeding activity. Here, we report the first record of overwintering tadpoles in the Italian agile frog (Rana latastei), a threatened endemic species of Northern Italy. This species usually breeds between late January and April, with tadpoles reaching metamorphosis by early summer. In February 2025, alongside the first freshly-laid egg-clutches of the usual breeding season, we observed several large-sized tadpoles at a reproductive site of R. latastei within Como province. A few days after hatching, six newly hatched tadpoles and six large-sized individuals at a later developmental stage were captured, photographed, and measured. Concurrently, a recently metamorphosed froglet was found at the same site. Morphological analyses revealed that individuals showed typical traits of R. latastei. Moreover, while newly hatched tadpoles were at Gosner’s development stages 25-26, large-sized individuals were visibly bigger and at a late developmental stage, which was incompatible with the classical late-winter breeding timing of this species. Our study provides the first evidence of overwintering tadpoles in R. latastei, suggesting that potential shifts in development timing (prolonged larval time) or altered breeding habits (autumnal reproduction) may be occurring. Although the mechanisms behind this unusual observation remain unclear, such a phenological shift may have been favoured by variation in climatic regime.

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