The sex life of frogs

Don't you hate it when a frog is trying to fertilize you?

Hello, my good human! I am Lefteris and this is my newsletter from the world of science and academia. You can subscribe by pressing this sexy little button below

Hello, my good human! I am Lefteris and this is my newsletter from the world of science and academia. You can subscribe by pressing this sexy little button below

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Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the topic of this newsletter is something that is quite serious and requires a lot of attention. Sometimes, I read something so silly that I just can’t resist. Not that this newsletter doesn’t require your attention. It’s just that it’s less urgent than climate change or diseases.

So this week we’ll talk about the sexual mishaps of frogs. A group of scientists from The University of Sao Paolo and the University of Amazonia in Colombia conducted an extensive literature review to understand the reproductive success (or lack thereof) of frogs. Specifically, they wanted to understand what drove these animals to try to mate with unsuitable mates. And no I don’t mean how you keep going back to your toxic ex-partner. But unsuitable in terms of species, existence or even substance. More details below.

Just a heads up. This Sunday 19 November expect the 4th edition of “The Science in Video Games” newsletter right in your inbox. For the new subscribers, this is a newsletter where I explore a specific aspect of a video game and try to figure out how it could become a reality! This fourth edition deals with the game “12 Minutes” and Patreons are already reading it!

What are frogs mating with?

If your answer to the above question was… other frogs, you would be correct in most cases. But let’s start with the basics of frog sex.

In most species, the male frog grips onto the back of the female frogs until they succeed in fertilising their eggs. This can last for a period of hours or even days!(I have no comments about this). However, the mating season can be quite competitive for the animals and the males use more of a… trial and error method and they latch on to whatever looks remotely like a female.

What the researchers are reporting in their article is that in the last 100 years, there have been 378 reported cases of frogs mating with anything you can think of other than the frogs of their own species. In 282 of those cases, the male frogs attempted to make with frogs from a species that is incompatible with their own.

So far, so good. Understandable mistakes. Who doesn’t have similar examples in their life? However, here’s where things get weird. In 46 cases male frogs tried to mate with a mate of the same species that, however, was lacking a pulse. Yep, these are cases of necrophilia that to my surprise are not 100% ineffective as there have been cases of dead female frogs carrying fertilized eggs![source]

Furthermore, there have been 50 cases where the frogs tried to mate with objects of species that were not amphibian. Meaning, tennis balls, cow dung, boots and anything you can think of.

But why?

That is something that the scientists are trying to find out. What a new paper from researchers in France shows is that there is a big possibility this trait happened way before the evolutionary step of the species, and the fact that it might have been happening for such a long time shows that the benefits of the practice outweigh the costs. [source]

While the initial research paper reported on these 378 cases of “Misdirected amplexus” as this is called, we don’t know really how often this happens, since these are the cases scientists have reported. (somehow it makes me feel nice that someone can answer the question “What is your job? with: “I study the sex life of frogs”). However, we do know that it happens all around the world and in some regions more often than others. In case you’re counting it’s more often in North and South America with Europe following.

Misdirected amplexus can have a number of negative consequences for amphibians. It can waste their time and energy, make them more likely to get eaten by predators, and even make it harder for them to have healthy offspring. In some cases, misdirected amplexus can even lead to hybridization. This is when an amphibian mates with a member of another species, and the resulting offspring is a hybrid. Hybrids can be infertile or have other health problems

Another aspect of this research is to identify more about the human influence of this practice. It is well known that our presence has affected biodiversity so our interference might play an important role in the fact that frogs are mating with whatever they find in their environment. You can read more about the research in the full article from ResearchGate or the news article from Discover Magazine.

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Any more news?

People in academia are constantly coming up with new and exciting things so if you need more to quench your curiosity here are some more headlines.

• Found at last: Bizarre, egg-laying mammal finally rediscovered after 60 years - by Science Daily

• ‘Bluewashing’: how ecotourism can be used against indigenous communities, by The Conversation

If you want to find out what other news were on the shortlist for this week’s newsletter subscribe to my Patreon below [=

Don’t Forget: Benefits of Space Exploration

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