When women are harassed on the street they might avoid eye contact or wear headphones to drown it all out. In the animal kingdom it turns out female frogs also have a tactic to avoid incessant males, they fake their own deaths.
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00:00When women are harassed on the street they might avoid eye contact or wear
00:07headphones to drown it all out. And in the animal kingdom it turns out female
00:10frogs also have a tactic to avoid incessant males. They fake their own
00:14deaths. A new study has uncovered the practice and they say this changes a lot
00:19of what we thought we knew about frogs. Previously experts believed that females
00:22would simply submit during mating season, during what are often referred to as
00:27Or where a large number of frogs clump up with many males vying and competing for
00:31mates and as many as six males can crowd onto one female. This is where the
00:35females death feigns and other tactics come into play. With the researchers
00:39saying quote we observed three female avoidance behaviors namely rotation
00:43release calls and tonic immobility. Death feigning. Most females 83% would attempt
00:48to twist their bodies to get away from their mates. A further 48% would use
00:52release calls where they would actually mimic the sounds of males and 25% would
00:57then fake their own death until released. With the researchers finding that it
01:00worked better than other means especially for smaller female frogs.