Female frogs have a unique and unexpected mating strategy: they fake their own deaths to avoid persistent males. A recent study on European common frogs has challenged the conventional notion that female frogs passively submit to male advances during mating season. The research, led by Carolin Dittrich and Mark-Oliver Rödel from the Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science in Germany, found that female frogs employ various avoidance behaviors when confronted by aggressive males. These behaviors include rotating their bodies, using release calls to mimic male frog calls, and feigning death through tonic immobility. The study sheds new light on the reproductive strategies of frogs, suggesting that tonic immobility might be a safer option for females than physically resisting male advances in a large mating group. Understanding these behaviors could aid in the conservation of amphibian species threatened by habitat fragmentation and help protect these intriguing creatures.
