Science, asked by darkone216, 5 months ago

1. Compare and contrast the life cycle of a butterfly with the life cycle of a frog​

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Answered by 0M0
3

The frog and the butterfly are both a common amphibian and insect; they each go through defined stages throughout their life cycles in order to move their habitats and reproduce to keep their species going.

FROG

The beginning life stages of a frog starts out as several thousand eggs layed in water or some type of wet place. When the eggs are laid, often times there are floating clumps called frog spawn (image). Within the clumps that are laid there are large slippery masses and smaller masses. The large ones are too big to be eaten; however, the small egg masses commonly get mistaken as food by other animals.

The egg begins as a single cell. As the egg matures it eventually splits into two and those two eggs make four and so on (image). As the egg begins to form this mass of cells it turns into an embryo. It is during the embryo stage that the frog begins to develop its gills and organs while feeding off of the yolk that is inside the egg. The yolk supplies the growing organism with nutrients up to 3 weeks.

After three weeks of the developmental period, the embryo leaves the egg and attaches onto a weed in the water. At this point the organism quickly develops into a tadpole. The tadpole stays attached to the weed until it is mature enough to swim free in the water. This stage takes from three days to three weeks depending on the type of frog they are going to mature into.

Once the tadpole is big enough to swim in the open water, it stays at the tadpole stage for about five weeks and then begins to change (image). Back legs begin to develop, shortly followed by front legs. The tails start to become noticeably smaller and their lungs begin to develop, so they are able to move around on land. While their lungs are developing underwater, they begin to come up from the water and breathe in air. After a few more days pass in this development stage the tadpoles begin to shed their skin and lips; their legs are also starting to grow and are able to start to function.

Just after eleven short weeks of the eggs being laid, the developing organism turns into a frog. As the frog advances through each of the developmental stages it becomes mostly a land amphibian while occasionally going for swims. As you can see, the frogs major change during its development is the changes in habitats that it lives in for survival and reproduction. Once the frog is fully mature it becomes dependent on the air for survival and the amphibian finds its mate on the land and then the female lays her eggs in the water and the whole process starts over again.

BUTTERFLY

Similar to the frog, the butterfly also goes through stages of specific development to reach maturity. The stages of a butterfly are: egg, larva, pupa, adult.

The female butterfly lays her eggs in clumps of 10-100 on the back of a leaf that caterpillars may feed on. After about 5-10 days in the egg stage, the egg hatches into a larva, which is like a tiny wrinkly worm. The larva or caterpillar eats many times its weight per day causing much damage to plant life that surrounds it. The constant eating causes the caterpillar to grow rapidly and shed its skin constantly. After about three weeks the caterpillar turns into a pupa. In the pupa stage the caterpillar attaches itself upside down to a twig and has its last skin shedding period. After the caterpillar sheds its skin a flexible shell encloses its body. It is during this 2-3 week stage that the growing butterfly undergoes its major change. Inside the shell the larval structures are broken down and re-formed into what appears to be an adult butterfly.

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