SCIENTISTS have made a bizarre discovery about the sex lives of European common frogs.
According to new research, females from the species Rana temporaria have a tactic they use to avoid mating.
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The frogs are known as explosive breeders and dozens will gather to have mating sessions with more males than females, according to Live Science.
Six males or more can try and mount the same female.
This can lead to something called a mating ball, which can be deadly.
Researchers think female frogs try to avoid this situation by playing dead or using two other tactics.
Carolin Dittrich, a researcher at the Natural History Museum in Berlin, explained the strategy to Live Science.
She said: “Rather than being passive and helpless, we find that females can use three key strategies for avoiding males they don’t want to mate with — either because they aren’t ready to breed or do not want to mate with a certain male.”
A study about the sex lives of these frogs has been published in the Royal Society Open Science journal.
It states: “Here we describe female mate avoidance behaviours in the European common frog.
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“We observed three female avoidance behaviours, namely ‘rotation’, ‘release call(s)’ and tonic immobility (death feigning).”
The experiment involved collecting frogs from ponds and observing them in tanks.
Two females and one male were put in each tank.
One-third of the female frogs would stretch out their limbs and become motionless when they were mounted.
Others squeaked or flipped over so the male frog was submerged and had to let go.
The researchers found that smaller females were more likely to do this.
Only 46 percent of the frogs were able to escape unwanted advances.
Scientists hope research like this can help with conservation.
