Female Frogs Play Dead to Dodge Unwanted Male Attention, Study Finds

New findings suggest that female European common frogs "may not be as passive and helpless as previously thought"

Female frogs will take extreme measures to escape unwanted attention from their male counterparts, a new study found.

During the European common frog’s scramble to breed — a potentially deadly process in which several males can hang onto one female frog — females sometimes pretend to be dead to escape unwanted attention from suitors, according to a study published in the journal Royal Society Open Science on Wednesday.

“It was previously thought that females were unable to choose or defend themselves against this male coercion,” Dr. Carolin Dittrich, who co-authored the study with Dr. Mark-Oliver Rödel, told The Guardian.

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According to Dittrich and Rödel's study — titled "Drop dead! Female mate avoidance in an explosively breeding frog" — female European common frogs confronted with an "explosive" mating event "may not be as passive and helpless as previously thought."

In the beginning, the scientists' research attempted to determine whether male frogs prefer a particular female body size — specifically, whether they were choosing female mates with bigger bodies.

The result? Male frogs were interested in all of the females, regardless of size.

Through this research, the scientist duo also discovered that during the Europen common frog's mating season, males exhibit harassment and sexual coercion, and, in turn, females fight back with three primary avoidance behaviors.

Of the three tactics, "tonic immobility," or feigning death — a behavior typically used in the animal kingdom to avoid predators — is the most extreme. (The other tactics include "rotation," a turning motion used to escape a male's grip, and "release call," a sound that emulates the grunting noises male frogs make.)

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The scientists also found that all three avoidance tactics, including playing dead, were used more frequently by smaller female frogs, who were more successful in escaping the males who clung to them.

In the scientists' experiments, 54 female frogs were "amplexed" (clasped to mate) by a male frog. Of the amplexed females, 83 percent employed rotation, about half emitted release calls, and roughly a third exhibited tonic immobility. Nearly half of the clasped frogs — 25 to be exact — were ultimately able to escape.

Through their findings, Dittrich and Rödel also discovered that one common trigger for tonic immobility in females was "mating balls" — clusters of frogs that form during mating season that often lead to female and male casualties by drowning.

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After sharing their findings, the researchers said that further studies should be conducted, particularly to investigate whether smaller female frogs are consistently more successful at escaping mating scenarios, as the duo's research suggests.

"I think even if we call this species a common frog and think we know it well, there are still aspects we don't know and perhaps haven't thought about," Dittrich told The Guardian.

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Dittrich also acknowledged that there are far more factors at play during the frog's mating season outside of the laboratory, and mate avoidance tactics may not have the same effectiveness in the wild.

"In the real world, we often observe the formation of mating balls, but also that females can more easily dive away because there is more structure and places to hide," she told The Guardian.

According to the researchers, however, their findings do provide evidence that "even in dense mating aggregations of explosive breeders," female frogs are "less helpless than generally assumed."

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