Answer to Question #158857 in English for CJ Ahlgrim

Question

Explain the life cycle of a frog. Use academic terms you heard in the video when writing about the life cycle of a frog. Please include how many stages there are in a frog's life cycle.  Please describe the characteristics of the frog in each stage of its life cycle. You MUST include life cycle and frog vocabulary from the video to receive the maximum amount of points on this.

It MUST be an ESSAY.. IT HAS TO BE DONE TODAY...

 

Answer 1

Frogs are amphibians, which means that they can live in water or on land. They go through several stages of life before they become adult frogs and during those stages, they live only in water. A frog begins life as a fertilized egg. A female frog lays a lot of eggs at one time in a pond. When multiple eggs stick together, they are collectively known as frogspawn. After fertilization, the innermost portion liquefies to allow free movement of the developing embryo. Frogs lay a lot of eggs because there are many dangers between fertilization and grown frog. Life starts right as the central yolk splits in two. It then divides into four, then eight, etc. Soon, the embryo starts to look more and more like a tadpole, getting longer and moving in egg. Usually, about 6-21 days after being fertilized, the egg will hatch. Most eggs are found in calm or static waters. When the rain comes along, after development of 7 to 9 days, the foam drips down, drop tiny tadpoles into the river or pond below (Video).

Stage 2 is tadpoles. Soon after hatching, the tadpole still feeds on the remaining yolk, which is actually in his gut. Tadpole is currently composed of poorly developed gills, mouth and tail. It's really fragile at this point. As a rule, they will stick to themselves floating weeds or grasses in the water using little sticky organs between its mouth and stomach area. Then, from 7 to 10 days after the tadpole has hatched, it will begin to swim around and eat algae. After 4 weeks, the gills start getting grown over the skin until they eventually disappear. In about 6 to 9 weeks, the tadpole starts to develop lungs so it will be able to breathe out of the water when it becomes a frog. The tadpole also starts to grow two hind legs. Now it can leap around instead of only swimming. Although the tadpole is starting to look a little more like a frog, it still has a very long tail! (Video).

Stage 3 is the young frog. After 9 weeks, the tadpole looks more like a young frog with really long tail. The tadpole grows two front legs and its long tail becomes shorter and shorter. The tadpole uses the nutrients stored in its tail as food, so until its tail is completely gone, it doesn’t need anything else to eat! Then just a little stub of its tail is left, and the tadpole is a young frog. It hops right out of the water and onto dry land for the first time! The frog is still very small.(“Video Life Cycle of a Frog”).

The last stage is the adult frog stage. The frog’s tail will eventually disappear completely and it will start to eat insects instead of plants from the water. The young frog will grow for about 2-4 years to become an adult. Almost all species of adult frogs are carnivorous preying on ivertebrates. Some may eat other small frogs, fish and small mamals. Most use sticky tongues to catch the prey. The adult frogs then lay their eggs and more tadpoles hatch and begin the cycle again.