The tadpole of the vampire flying frog Rhacophorus vampyrus from Vietnam is one
of the strangest tadpoles known. These tadpoles develop from non-pigmented eggs
suspended in a foam nest placed on the wall of a tree hole. The elongate, depressed
body resembles that of some phytotelmon-breeding frogs, but the mouthparts bear
little resemblance to any other tadpole: upper labium reduced to one large papilla-
like structure on each side, upper jaw sheath with a few huge, widely spaced,
hook-shaped serrations that face backwards into the buccal cavity, lower jaw sheath
absent, sinistral spiracle visible only ventrally, and two large, forward facing, keratinized
hooks accompanied laterally by two similar sized fleshy papillae on the
margin of the reduced lower labium. All evidence suggests that the tadpoles are
oophagous and that the mother returns to deposit trophic eggs.