This essay examines the changes throughout the life cycle of flowers, frogs and butterflies.
IIntroduction
These papers overall consider the themes of pregnancy and the changes in a woman’s body, and the metamorphosis of living things. Pregnancy, in one sense, is such a metamorphosis: the woman’s body is the cocoon from which new life emerges. Let’s explore the changes in insects, frogs and flowers as examples of metamorphoses in nature.
IIDiscussion
Metamorphoses in nature are amazing: caterpillars become butterflies; tadpoles become frogs; and seeds become flowers. These changes are amazing, for they involve not only rapid growth, but complete transformations from one physical form to another.
When trying to describe the cycles of nature, there’s no real way to determine a starting point. But since it seems logical, we’ll look at the butterfly’s life cycle as beginning with the egg. The eggs are laid by the female on the appropriate plant, in and about five days a tiny wormlike caterpillar hatches.
The caterpillar immediately begins eating the plant food on which it has hatched; it also sheds its skin, usually four times, a process called ecdysis, The caterpillar at this point is transformed into a creature called a pupa, which spins a cocoon for the final transformation.
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The cocoon may seem lifeless, but inside the caterpillar is in the process of becoming a butterfly. The caterpillar literally liquefies and is reassembled into one of the most gorgeous creatures in nature. The four stages are quite distinct: egg, caterpillar, pupa, butterfly. In each, the insect eats different foods and has a distinctly different appearance. (“The Amazing Life Cycle of the Butterfly,” PG).
This process is entirely dissimilar from that of mammals, where one knows a kitten will become a cat; a puppy a dog; and a baby a human. Here, there is no corresponding physical resemblance between the developmental stages.
The same type of oddly dissimilar physical stages occurs in the development of frogs. Frogs are amphibians, a class of animal that spends part of its time in the water and part on land. Like butterflies, frogs lay eggs, only the female lays the in the water. When they hatch, the tiny creatures are known as tadpoles, and they breathe through gills as fish do. As the tadpoles mature, they grow legs, and begin to develop lungs for breathing. At 2-4 months of age, the “froglet” has begun to lose its tail and is breathing air fairly comfortably. The adult frog has no tail and is an air-breather.
Like the butterfly, this is a startling transformation, although it is not the physical stages that are so amazing, but the fact that an entirely new breathing system is developed as the animal grows. (“Frogs,” PG).
Flower cycles are very complex as well. I’ve found several detailed website, illustrations included, that are useful in detailing the life cycles of flowers.
Flowers are difficult because one plant contains both male and female characteristics, and because flowers require help from other agencies (birds, insects, etc.) to succeed in reproducing. The life cycle as botanists describe it is so detailed that I’ll simply quote it here:
“Arbitrarily begin the angiosperm life cycle with the development of the diploid flower on the mature sporophyte plant. Within the anther microsporocytes develop and undergo meiosis to produce haploid microspores. Each of these undergoes one mitotic division to yield a generative cell and a tube cell. These together comprise the immature microgametophyte, or pollen grain. The generative cell completes a second mitotic division to produce two sperm nuclei. Inside the ovule a single megasporocyte develops, undergoes meiosis, and produces four haploid megaspores. Three of these degenerate, while the fourth undergoes three mitotic divisions to produce an eight-nucleate embryo sac, or mature megagametophyte. Upon pollination, the pollen grain germinates on the stigma, a pollen tube grows down the style and into the ovary via the micropyle. One sperm nucleus fuses with the egg to create a diploid zygote, while the other sperm nucleus fuses with the two polar nuclei to produce the nutritive, triploid endosperm. This process of double fertilization is unique to flowering plants. The embryo develops inside the embryo sac, integuments of the ovule form a protective seed coat around it, and the mature ovary forms a protective fruit around the seed.” (“Angiosperms,” PG).
The Essay on The Frog Life Cycle Process
In Biology, we know the term metamorphosis which is the transformation process of animal’s body structure from the immature one to the adult form. This transformation process is done through cell growth and differentiation. This process usually happens in some insect’s life, such as butterfly. But there’s also amphibian, like frogs, which is also do metamorphosis in their life cycle. Frogs have ...
Once the seed is formed, it lies dormant in the soil until the proper “cues” reach it; cues such as length of daylight, temperature, etc. When the cues are right, the seed sprouts. Thus, in very simple terms, the life cycle of flowers is pollination/fertilization, dormancy, sprouting and growth. Like the frog and butterfly, they go through extreme changes physically in their life cycles, and the seed that lies in the ground bears little resemblance to the plant that will grow from it.
IIIConclusion
The most important and striking feature of these examples is that these organisms undergo significant physical changes during development; the human child does not.
IVReferences
“Angiosperms.” [Web page]. Undated. Accessed: 12 Feb 2003. http://www.wfu.edu/users/fuller5/angio.htm
“The Amazing Life Cycle of the Butterfly.” The London Butterfly House [Web Page]. Undated. Accessed: 12 Feb 2003. http://www.butterflies.org.uk/lbh_home/cycle.htm
Farabee, M.J. “Flowering Plant Reproduction.” [Web page]. 2001. Accessed: 12 Feb 2003. http://www.emc.maricopa.edu/faculty/farabee/BIOBK/BioBookflowers.html
(Note: This is another highly detailed, excellent site delineating the study of plants.)
“Frogs.” Enchanted Learning.com [Web site]. 19992003. Accessed: 12 Feb 2003. http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/amphibians/Frogprintout.shtml
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