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What They Eat Adult amphibians eat small animals. Most frogs, toads and salamanders eat insects and other small animals without back bones, such as worms, slugs and spiders. Some large amphibians can eat small back-boned animals. A big leopard frog can eat other small frogs, baby snakes and even baby birds! Salamander young eat tiny water animals. The young of frogs and toads (we call them tadpoles) eat tiny water plants, bits of larger dead plants and even dead animals. Tadpoles will even eat other tadpoles that have died. How They Eat Amphibians have good eyesight. They will try to catch any small animal that is moving. They don't notice things that are not moving. A salamander hunts by crawling close to a small animal and grabbing it with its strong jaws. A frog or toad hunts by sitting still and waiting for an animal to come close. Then it jumps at the animal and catches it with its sticky tongue and strong jaws. Some frogs, toads and even some salamanders can shoot their tongues out a long way (not as far as you see in cartoons), but most have short tongues. Frogs, toads and salamanders don't chew their food. They swallow small animals whole.  Young salamanders have large jaws, like the adults, and swallow small animals whole. Tadpoles have small sharp jaws that can scrape up tiny plants or cut up pieces of large plants or animals.
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