Q1.
Do you think that birds also show significant changes in the various stages of their life cycle?
Answer
Birds do change, but nothing like as dramatically as a mosquito or a frog.
| Stage in a bird's life | What it looks like |
|---|---|
| Egg | Hard-shelled, laid in a nest; the chick develops inside |
| Chick (nestling) | Small, weak, often almost featherless, eyes closed, cannot fly; fed by the parents |
| Young bird (fledgling) | Feathers grown, learning to fly, still fed sometimes |
| Adult bird | Fully feathered, flies, feeds itself and lays eggs of its own |
How this differs from a frog or a mosquito:
- A chick already has the same body plan as its parent — a beak, two wings, two legs. It mainly grows bigger and grows feathers.
- Its habitat does not change — nest, then trees and air.
- There is no resting stage like a pupa and no organ is lost the way a tadpole loses its tail.
So what is the honest answer? Yes, changes do occur — a bare pink nestling and a flying koel look very different — but these are changes of size and covering, not a complete rebuilding of the body. The chapter's phrase “significant changes in appearance, body shape and structure” fits the mosquito and the frog far better than the bird.