Life Cycle Word Search

Print 16 life cycle words with an answer key, or swap in the butterfly, frog, chicken or plant list.

Name Date

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0 of 16 words found

NCATERPILLAROHA

JNSADULTEEMTEPH

EDEDRFSNIOILMSA

OSAPBEHAMLRBEUL

ELSOUPSORDHATCH

OXELTTVCLLMEAJU

EBEETMOLTAEMMLI

LODREYRRLAOBOAS

TALPROTCFEARRSP

UMIGFTSORGSYPPR

RINILPHNUUEOHOO

AAGLYOCHICKCOIU

SAFLOWERTAHSSHT

CTASLORSTAGEINB

YBWJFNYMPHTFSFQ

This grid is wider and taller than its box. Slide it to see every letter.To drag, hold the first letter for a moment, then slide.Keyboard: Tab to the grid, arrow keys to move, Enter on the first and last letter.

CaterpillarCATERPILLAR
AdultADULT
ButterflyBUTTERFLY
MetamorphosisMETAMORPHOSIS
MoltMOLT
HatchHATCH
EmbryoEMBRYO
TadpoleTADPOLE
GillsGILLS
ChickCHICK
SeedlingSEEDLING
SproutSPROUT
FlowerFLOWER
FruitFRUIT
NymphNYMPH
StageSTAGE

16 of 24 words from the Life Cycle Key Terms list.

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Answer key: Life Cycle Word Search

NCATERPILLAROHA

JNSADULTEEMTEPH

EDEDRFSNIOILMSA

OSAPBEHAMLRBEUL

ELSOUPSORDHATCH

OXELTTVCLLMEAJU

EBEETMOLTAEMMLI

LODREYRRLAOBOAS

TALPROTCFEARRSP

UMIGFTSORGSYPPR

RINILPHNUUEOHOO

AAGLYOCHICKCOIU

SAFLOWERTAHSSHT

CTASLORSTAGEINB

YBWJFNYMPHTFSFQ

CATERPILLAR, ADULT, BUTTERFLY, METAMORPHOSIS, MOLT, HATCH, EMBRYO, TADPOLE, GILLS, CHICK, SEEDLING, SPROUT, FLOWER, FRUIT, NYMPH, STAGE

Next step Type in the stages of the animal your class is raising Scramble the same life cycle words

All 110 words

Butterfly Life Cycle 22

Adult A living thing that has reached full growth and can have young of its own.
Antennae The two feelers on an insect's head; most butterflies have clubbed ones.
Butterfly An insect with four scale-covered wings and a four-stage life.
Caterpillar The larva of a butterfly or moth; most kinds eat leaves.
Chrysalis The pupa of a butterfly; unlike a moth's, it is not wrapped in a cocoon.
Cocoon A silk case that many moth caterpillars spin around themselves before the pupa stage.
Egg The first stage for a butterfly, a frog and a chicken; the young animal grows inside it.
Hatch To break out of an egg.
Host plant The kind of plant a butterfly lays its eggs on; the caterpillars feed on it.
Imago The last stage an insect reaches: the adult.
Instar A stage of a growing insect between one shedding of its skin and the next.
Larva A young form that looks very unlike the adult, such as a caterpillar.
Leaf The flat green part of a plant; most caterpillars eat it.
Metamorphosis A big, fairly sudden change in body form as an animal develops.

Show all 110 words (96 more)

Butterfly Life Cycle, continued

Molt To shed an old skin; a caterpillar does it at the end of each instar.
Moth A close relative of the butterfly, with the same four stages and often duller wings.
Nectar The sugar-rich liquid in flowers that adult butterflies mostly feed on.
Proboscis The long tube a butterfly sips with; it coils up when not in use.
Prolegs Small, fleshy stubs under a caterpillar's abdomen that help it grip.
Pupa The stage between larva and adult in insects that have four stages.
Scales Tiny plates that cover a butterfly's wings and give them their color.
Silk A fine thread that a caterpillar can spin from a spinneret near its mouth.

Frog Life Cycle 15

Algae Simple plant-like living things in water; most frog tadpoles feed mainly on them.
Clutch A group of eggs laid at one time.
Croak A call made by a male frog, mostly in the breeding season.
Embryo The earliest stage of a new living thing, before it hatches, sprouts or is born.
Froglet A newly emerged frog, just past the tadpole stage.
Gills The organs a tadpole uses to breathe under water.
Hind legs The long back limbs of a frog, used for jumping.
Jelly The clear, soft wrapping around a frog's eggs.
Lungs The air-breathing organs a tadpole starts to develop during metamorphosis.
Polliwog Another name for a tadpole.
Spawn Eggs laid in water by frogs, fish and other water animals.
Tadpole The larva of a frog or toad; it lives in water and swims with its tail.
Tail A tadpole swims with it; an adult frog has none.
Toad A name usually given to frogs with dry, warty skin that live on land.
Webbed feet Toes joined by skin, as many frogs have; the more time in water, the more joined.

Chicken Life Cycle 18

Albumen Another word for egg white, which protects the yolk.
Brood To sit on eggs or cover chicks to keep them warm; also a family of young birds.
Candling Shining a bright light through an egg to watch the embryo grow inside.
Chick A young chicken.
Cockerel A young male chicken.
Comb The fleshy crest on top of a chicken's head.
Down The fine, fluffy feathers that are all a very young bird has.
Feathers What covers a bird's body; the tougher outer ones lie over the down.
Fertile Able to develop into a chick; only eggs like this can hatch.
Hen An adult female chicken.
Incubate To keep eggs warm until they hatch; for a chicken this takes about 21 days.
Lay To produce an egg, as a hen does.
Nest The place where a hen lays her eggs and sits on them.
Pullet A female chicken under one year old.
Rooster An adult male chicken.
Shell The hard outer covering of a bird's egg.
Wattle One of the flaps of skin that hang under a chicken's beak.
Yolk The yellow part of an egg; its job is to feed the growing embryo.

Plant Life Cycle 19

Annual A plant that goes from seed to seed within one growing season, then dies.
Biennial A plant that takes two years to complete its life.
Cotyledon A seed leaf: one of the first leaves to appear from a germinating seed.
Dispersal The spreading of seeds away from the parent plant, by wind or by animals.
Dormant Alive but not growing, like a seed waiting for the right conditions.
Flower The part of a plant that makes pollen and, later, seeds.
Fruit The seed-bearing part of a flowering plant, formed after flowering.
Germination The process by which a plant begins to grow from a seed.
Perennial A plant that lives for more than two years.
Pollen The powdery substance made by flowers that is needed to make seeds.
Pollination The moving of pollen from one flower part to another, by insects, wind or water.
Radicle The first part of a seedling to come out of the seed: the young root.
Root The part of a plant that grows down into the soil and takes in water.
Sapling A young tree.
Seed coat The protective outer layer of a seed.
Seedling A young plant that has just grown from a seed.
Shoot The new growth from a seed that grows upward, where leaves will develop.
Sprout To begin to grow from a seed; also the new growth itself.
Stem The main stalk of a plant, which holds up the leaves and flowers.

More Animal Life Cycles 20

Alevin A newly hatched salmon that still carries its yolk sac.
Cicada An insect whose nymphs live underground, in some kinds for 13 or 17 years.
Dragonfly An insect whose nymphs live in water and hunt there before the adults fly.
Fry A young fish that has grown enough to feed by itself.
Hatchling A newly hatched fish, amphibian, reptile or bird.
Jellyfish A sea animal with a life in two forms: a fixed polyp and a swimming medusa.
Joey A young kangaroo.
Kangaroo A marsupial whose young complete their development in a pouch.
Ladybug A small beetle; like most insects it goes from larva to pupa to adult.
Maggot The larva of a fly.
Mealworm The larva of a kind of darkling beetle.
Medusa The free-swimming, bell-shaped form of a jellyfish.
Mosquito A small fly whose egg, larva and pupa stages mostly live in water.
Nymph A young insect that already looks like the adult and never becomes a pupa.
Parr A young salmon marked with spots and vertical bars, living in fresh water.
Polyp The form of a jellyfish that stays in one place, attached to the seabed.
Pouch Where a young kangaroo finishes developing after it is born.
Salmon A fish that hatches in fresh water, grows in the ocean and returns to spawn.
Sea turtle A reptile that comes ashore to lay its eggs on sandy beaches.
Smolt A young salmon that is ready to move from fresh water out to the sea.

Stages of Life 14

Birth The moment a young animal comes out of its mother's body.
Cycle A series of steps that leads back to its starting point and repeats.
Death The end of a life.
Develop To change step by step toward the adult form.
Fertilize To join a male cell with an egg cell so that a new living thing can begin.
Generation Parents are one; their offspring are the next.
Grow To get bigger over time.
Lifespan How long a living thing lives.
Mature Fully grown and able to reproduce.
Newborn An animal that has only just been born.
Parent A living thing that has produced offspring.
Reproduce To produce new living things of the same kind.
Stage One step in a life cycle, such as egg, larva, pupa or adult.
Young Not yet fully grown; also the babies of an animal.

Easy Life Cycle 2

Frog A tailless amphibian whose eggs hatch into tadpoles.
Seed A plant part that holds an embryo and stored food inside a protective coat.

How this list was compiled: Own work: the word list and every clue were written for this page. The facts in the clues were checked on 2026-10-08 against English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0), among them the articles on the biological life cycle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_life_cycle), the butterfly (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly), the frog (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frog), the tadpole (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tadpole), the chicken (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken), germination (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germination) and the seedling (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seedling), and plain word meanings against Wiktionary (https://en.wiktionary.org/). Licence: own work

How it works

This life cycle word search keeps each cycle in a list of its own: butterfly, frog, chicken and plant, then more animals, from salmon to kangaroo, and the stage words that every cycle shares.

Read the full guide

A plant life cycle word search

Pick Plant Life Cycle under Start from a list and the sheet prints under that title. Its 21 words follow a plant from Germination, Radicle, Cotyledon and Seedling to Flower, Pollination, Fruit and Dispersal, then Annual, Biennial and Perennial.

Butterfly, frog and chicken, stage by stage

Butterfly Life Cycle has 22 words, with Instar, Chrysalis and Imago beside Egg and Caterpillar. Frog Life Cycle has 19: Spawn, Tadpole, Gills, Froglet. Chicken Life Cycle has 22, from Yolk and Incubate to Pullet and Cockerel. For a life cycles word search across more animals, More Animal Life Cycles adds 20, such as Nymph, Alevin, Smolt, Joey and Medusa.

Frog reads inside Froglet and Seed inside Seedling, so the two short words wait in Easy Life Cycle.
Host plant, Hind legs, Webbed feet, Seed coat and Sea turtle each hide as one run of letters: SEATURTLE.

Questions and answers

What are the 4 stages of a butterfly's life cycle?

Egg, larva, pupa and adult. The larva is the caterpillar, the pupa is the chrysalis, and the adult is also called the imago. Butterfly Life Cycle has all seven of those words.

What are the stages of a frog's life cycle?

Egg, tadpole, froglet and adult. Frogs typically lay their eggs in water, wrapped in jelly, as spawn. The eggs hatch into tadpoles, which have tails and gills. During metamorphosis a tadpole develops lungs, and the newly emerged frog is a froglet.

How long does a chicken egg take to hatch?

About 21 days of incubation. The chick breaks out of the shell with its egg tooth, and the hen stays on the nest some two days after the first chick is out.

What is the life cycle of a plant?

A seed germinates and its first root, the radicle, comes out. The seedling grows into a plant that flowers. Pollination leads to new seeds, held in fruit, and dispersal carries them away from the parent plant.

Does the life cycle word search come with an answer key?

Yes, on a second page, Letter or A4. To practice the meanings, tick Show clues, not words, and Chrysalis prints as "The pupa of a butterfly; unlike a moth's, it is not wrapped in a cocoon."

All 110 words

Butterfly Life Cycle 22

Butterfly Life Cycle, continued

Frog Life Cycle 15

Chicken Life Cycle 18

Plant Life Cycle 19

More Animal Life Cycles 20

Stages of Life 14

Easy Life Cycle 2

How it works

A plant life cycle word search

Butterfly, frog and chicken, stage by stage

Questions and answers

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