I love animals - Information and questions for small kids - Part 8 Frogs
The one day you see a little fish in the pond, a few days later the fish has a tail and a pair of legs. How is this possible? Fish do not have legs... and then you realize it is not a fish, it is a tadpole.
Lets have a look at the life cycle of a frog and some interesting facts.
- Draw the different stages of the development from egg to frog.
A frog belongs to the class called Amphibians. They are animals that can live both in water and on land.
They lay their eggs in the water and 'metamorphosis' take place from then up to when it is an adult. Metamorphosis is a big word that means change. As you saw in the video, there are different stages and changes that a frog goes through before it becomes and adult frog.
The tadpole looks a lot like a fish and it even has gills before it develops lungs when it is a frog. A frog uses it nostrils to breathe in, but more than half of the oxygen it needs is taken in through the skin.
- What do humans use to take in oxygen?
Frogs spend a lot of time on land, but you will always find them close to water, because if their skin dries out too much, they will die. They also do not drink water but they are almost like a sponge where the water goes through the skin into the body.
- What is a 'habitat'?
- Describe the habitat of a frog.
Frogs catch insects with their long sticky tongue they can 'flick' out very quickly. Your tongue is attached to the back of your mouth, but the frog's tongue is attached to the front of the mouth, so it can be stuck out much further. The frog will sit still and in a flash it will catch an insect.
Frogs and toads are carnivores, which means that they will eat meat. Small to medium sized frogs eat insects such as flies, mosquitoes, moths and dragonflies. Larger frogs will eat larger insects like grasshoppers and worms.
- Watch the video on how a frog catches an insect.
If a frog is kept in captivity, they will live much longer than in the wild, because in the wild they face a lot of dangers and predators.
Many kinds of birds who live in and around freshwater biomes can eat smaller frogs and tadpoles. Large bullfrogs are safe from all but the bigger birds, such as herons. Common avian predators of frogs include ducks, geese, swans, wading birds, gulls, crows, ravens and hawks.
- What is an 'avian predator'?
- Can you remember what is a 'biome'?
A very weird thing about a frog is that it never closes its eyes, even when it sleeps and it can see in front of it and to the sides and also upwards. There is a time when it seems like the frog is blinking, but it is actually swallowing. It swallows with the help of its eyes.
When the frog blinks, its eyeballs are pushed downwards creating a bulge in the roof of its mouth. This bulge squeezes the food inside the frog's mouth down the back of its throat.
You also find frogs that are poisonous if eaten and they will warn the predators with bright colors "DO NOT eat me. You will get sick or even die."
For extra information you can read more here.
- There are many frogs on earth. Find pictures of at least 5 types and write one interesting sentence on each.
- Be creative and try and fold your own 'Origami jumping frog.'
