When we talk about baby animals turning into adults, we say they are growing up. But for animals that go through metamorphosis, we could talk about changing up. They actually change the way they live, eat, and breathe. For example, tadpoles are herbivores. They eat tiny plant life. Frogs are carnivores. Small frogs eat flies, mosquitoes, moths and dragonflies. Bigger frogs eat bigger things like grasshoppers and worms. Some can even eat small snakes or mice.
Life Cycle of a Frog
1) Egg mass—A female frog lays several hundred or even thousands of eggs in a mass in still water. A jellylike covering sticks the eggs together and protects them. So many are laid because so few survive. Frog eggs are eaten by ducks, fish, bugs, and many other hungry creatures.
2) Embryo—A tiny tadpole develops within an egg. An egg starts as a single cell. God gives that one cell everything needed to eventually turn into a frog. The single cell splits into two. The two split into four, and so on. The growing embryo is nourished by the egg’s yolk for about three weeks. Then it hatches.
3) Tadpole—After leaving the egg, a tadpole first clings to an underwater plant. A tadpole breathes through gills like a fish. It uses its long tail to swim. Coloring is dark and dull because camouflage is a tadpole’s only defense at this stage.
Later, it uses its tail to begin swimming about. It uses its ring of tiny teeth to scrape algae off underwater plants and rocks. (You can see algae growing. It can look like pond scum.) Rear legs grow first. Then front legs develop.
4) Frog—After about 12 weeks, the most dramatic changes have taken place.
■ Body shape begins to widen and change.
■ Skull turns from cartilage to bone.
■ Tail is absorbed by body.
■ Eyes bulge out.
■ Mouth widens.
■ Organs needed to change from breathing in water to breathing in air grow and transform.
■ Gills disappear and lungs grow.
■ Tiny, plant-tearing teeth disappear.
Tadpoles have changed into frogs, able to breathe air, live on dry land, and feed on insects, worms, and other small living creatures.
