Female frogs have a unique escape plan to avoid unwanted male advances: they fake their deaths.
A new study from the Natural History Museum of Berlin, published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, reveals that one-third of female frogs will play dead to avoid the potentially fatal act, where male frogs physically attach to females for mating.
Researchers observed the mating behaviours of common frogs when placed in a contained space with one male and two females.
In their observations, females that were grabbed by the males exhibited “tonic immobility”, a state illustrated by stiffened, outstretched limbs and a lack of response to external stimuli, the New York Post reported.
This survival technique, commonly seen in other amphibians, had not been previously recorded for frogs in this context.
Some female frogs combined this “death act” with body rotations and noises like grunts and squeaks to repel the males.
Interestingly, smaller female frogs, perhaps due to their inexperience in mating, used all three tactics more frequently and seemed to have higher escape success rates.
While this research suggests that these behaviours are mainly for escaping undesired mates, there is also a possibility that the rotations might serve a dual purpose.
It could allow female frogs to gauge the strength of their potential mate, avoiding the dangerous “mating ball” situation where multiple males attach to a single female.
The researchers acknowledge the need for larger sample sizes in future studies, as well as introducing more males to the female pairs to further observe these behaviours.
While tempting, this technique is not recommended for the human species.
Pictured above: Frogs.
