Female frogs sometimes play dead to avoid mating with males

New Scientist ^ | 11 October 2023 | By Chen Ly

[Red Badger]

Frog mating can be a competitive and sometimes deadly affair as many males compete for females – but females have some tricks to avoid unwanted attention

Male frogs commonly coerce female frogs into mating, but some females have come up with ways to avoid harassment – including playing dead.

Many frog species, including the European common frog (Rana temporaria), only have a short window of a few weeks each year to mate. This means that lots of males simultaneously compete for the attention of females, sometimes leading to deadly clashes as individuals are submerged under a competing group of males.

“It could be that there are several males clinging to one female, which often leads to the death of the female,” says Carolin Dittrich at the Natural History Museum in Berlin, Germany.

Now, Dittrich and her colleagues have found that female common frogs employ a few different tactics to evade males.

The team collected common frogs during the breeding season – 96 females and 48 males – and placed one male and two differently sized females in a box filled with 5 centimetres of water. The frogs were then allowed to move freely for 1 hour while the team recorded their behaviour.

Of the 54 female frogs that were embraced by a male as part of the mating process, 83 per cent rotated away, making it the most common escape tactic.

[PTBAA]

Only the married ones.

[Jim W N]

If she was a frog, she should have croaked, right?

[Clay Moore]

Here for the comments!

[FamiliarFace]

Funny choice of words there.

[dfwgator]

Not this Frog.

[DownInFlames]

So do I.

[Tell It Right]

No wonder this woman was once told that she's cute like a frog. LOL

[Olog-hai]

Frogs spawn; they do not “mate”.

Of course, the female can indeed get picky about what male she shares her eggs with.

[Gay State Conservative]

I'm not going anywhere near this one!

[roving]

I’m here for the comments.

[teeman8r]

wouldn’t stop me. ribbit

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Or chatting on their phone, reading a book, or playing video games.

[Eagles6]

I had a girlfriend that...well...never mind.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

You mean to tell me that my ex wife is a frog?

Should'a tried the old gambit...

"Hi honey, here's two aspirin."
"But I don't have a headache."
"Good. Let's get busy."

[rlmorel]

This should be a fun thread...:)

[FamiliarFace]

Yep. I’ll have to refresh my page from time to time.

[rlmorel]

I post threads on what I see as serious subjects, and feel lucky to get 35 responses.

A thread on the sexual activity of frogs gets 35 responses in a half hour!

Oh well.

Back to the frogs!

[Still Thinking]

That won’t save them.

[Mr. Blond]

“Not tonight, honey. I’m dead.”

[BBB333]

I guess ugly, amorous, frisky female frogs fantasize about luring successful business type male frogs into changing rooms in upscale department stores...