Life Cycle of a Frog Explained

A life cycle refers to the stages or changes that an animal goes through while it’s alive. A life cycle repeats itself, or goes in a circle, for each new generation of life. A frog goes through five stages of life. In each stage, it changes and grows. Stage 1: Egg

Frogs lay fertilized eggs. That’s where new frogs come from. A female frog can lay up to 4,000 eggs at a time! The eggs float on water in a jelly mass or cluster. The eggs hatch in one to three weeks into tadpoles! front legs, and become a full grown adult frog! Check out the process below about how a frog develops during its life.Stage 1: Egg

Frogs lay fertilized eggs. That’s where new frogs come from. A female frog can lay up to 4,000 eggs at a time! The eggs float on water in a jelly mass or cluster. The eggs hatch in one to three weeks into tadpoles!Stage 2: Tadpole

Then a tadpole hatches from an egg. When the tadpole hatches, it looks more like a fish than a frog. A tadpole lives in water. It uses gills to breathe and it has no legs. The tadpole swims, eats plants and algae from the water, and grows for several weeks.Stage 3: FrogletDuring this time, 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. At this point, the tadpole can now be considered a froglet. The froglet can leap around instead of only swim. Although the froglet is starting to look a little more like a frog, it still has a very long tail!Stage 4: Young FrogThe froglet 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 froglet 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.Stage 5: Adult Frog

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. The adult frogs then lay their eggs and more tadpoles hatch and begin the cycle again!