Lifecycle of a Frog
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In the Spring the adult frogs awake from their long Winter
sleep and start finding sources of water to breed in. When the
frog reaches the source of water, like a pond, breeding begins
with the male croaking loudly to attract the female. When he
finds a female, he grabs her from behind with the help of special
pads on his fore limbs and holds on as tight as he can. As soon
as the female releases her eggs into the water they are
fertilized by the male. This first stage is called fertilization
.
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Egg
The second stage of the frogcycle is the laying of the eggs.
The female lays hundreds and hundreds of eggs at one time. Thats
a lot of eggs! The female does that because there are a lot of
hazards between the fertlization stage and the full grown stage.
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Tadpole
The third stage of the frogcycle, is the hatching and
development of the tadpole. When the tadpole hatches from the egg
it has very poor developed gills, a mouth, and a tail. Tadpoles
usually will stick themselves to floating weeds or grasses in the
water using little sticky organs between its mouth and its belly.
Around 7 to 10 days after the tadpole has hatched, it will begin
to swim around and feed on algae. After about 4 weeks, the gills
start to grow over the skin, until they disappear. They also
become more socialable and they even start to make friends! After
about 6 to 9 weeks, tiny legs start to appear. Then the head
starts to take shape and the body becomes longer. Then after
about 9 weeks, the tadpole starts to look more like a little frog
with a really long tail. It's now well on its way to being full
grown.
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Frog
The final stage of the frogcycle is the
completion of the full growth. Now the frog will start the whole
process all over again.
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sources: http://webhome.idirect.com/~imaball/life.htm
http://aoife.indigo.ie/~pcc/lifecycle.html