The Life Cycle of a Fish: Part 2

Lesson Plan - Get It!

Audio:

Fish can be found in bodies of water all over the world. Most fish hatch out of eggs. Once they hatch out of their egg, they are in the larval stage. This tiny fish will feed off a yolk sac until it is ready to search for food. Once the fish has grown and is strong enough to search for food, it is in the fry stage. These are all the stages you learned about in the previous lesson in our The Life Cycle of a Fish series, found under Related Lessons in the right-hand sidebar.

During this lesson, you will explore what happens at the end of a fish’s life cycle.

The next stage in a fish’s life cycle is the juvenile stage, which is like our teenage stage. In this stage, the fish’s fins will grow stronger and its colors may change, too. As the fish grows, it will need to change its diet. The new diet can be hard for these growing fish to get used to and many fish will not survive this stage. During this stage, the fish’s survival depends on whether or not it can find food. If the juvenile fish can find food, it will continue to grow into the next stage. Below, you can see a juvenile sheepshead fish, and beneath that picture is a juvenile yellow boxfish:

The final stage of a fish’s life cycle is the adult stage. This stage occurs once a fish is fully grown. The adult fish will be able to find food and survive in its habitat. An animal's habitat is where it lives. For example, once a clownfish is fully grown, it will be able to make its home in a sea anemone and will be able to find food. During this stage, the fish will be able to have babies. This is the most important part of a fish’s life cycle. Once a fish can have babies, the life cycle starts all over again. Below, you can see many different examples of adult fish:

Clownfish

Goldfish

Salmon

The last stages of a fish's life cycle are the juvenile stage and the adult stage. Tell your parent or teacher why many fish do not survive the juvenile stage.

After sharing, move on to the Got It? section to create your index cards for your fish life cycle project.