Scientists Find Animal That Will Also Ghost When A Date Turns Bad
By now, just about every person subjected to a few swipes on dating apps has been forced to develop a series of strategies to escape from a bad date. According to a recent write-up in The Royal Society Publishing, this behavior isn’t exclusive to human beings. Apparently, female frog species have been known to develop carefully laid out exit strategies for evenings where mating seems like too much of a chore, including pretending to be dead to avoid their mate.
A study of European frogs reveals that sometimes, the females will play dead to avoid the attention of an unwanted suitor.
The paper cites several studies involving frogs across Europe, who seem to be constructing their version of ‘ghosting.’ For those uninitiated in the modern dating scene, ghosting is a term used to describe withdrawing from a personal relationship without communication or explanation, simply evaporating from your unwanted partner’s life like that of a ghost. For frogs, this process seems to go a bit further than screening phone calls and not replying to texts, as the creatures have chosen to play dead.
The behavior was likely adapted from existing evolutionary measures which see frogs and other amphibians playing dead to avoid predators, meaning mating seasons for these frog species have become so dangerous and unwelcome in recent years that it bares resemblance to being hunted and killed…
Like many human beings, the frogs involved in the study are characterized as ‘explosive breeders’, meaning their window for mating is incredibly short and subject to a great deal of competition. For female European frogs, this means a barrage of male suitors, which can sometimes become quite overwhelming and sometimes, even physically dangerous. As male frogs continue to grab and cling to potential mates, sometimes multiple males can cling to a single female at once, resulting in a phenomenon known as a “mating ball,” which can injure or kill the female frog, depending on the sheer weight and heat of male frogs involved.
With this in mind, it seems clear that we can all excuse female frogs for their lack of communication within the dating pool, as the community surrounding frog mating seems about as toxic as an average episode of The Bachelor. In order to pretend to be dead as a means to escape their ravenous male suitors, female frogs undergo a process that sees them stiffening their joints, stretching their limbs out wide, and feigning the symptoms of rigor mortis. The study seems to suggest that this method of mate avoidance is highly effective, though it has only been observed in a small handful of frog species.
Other forms of mating avoidance in frogs include screaming in a ‘non-receptivity’ tone and rotating rapidly in place to prevent males from latching onto their stationary bodies.
The behavior was likely adapted from existing evolutionary measures which see frogs and other amphibians playing dead to avoid predators, meaning mating seasons for these frog species have become so dangerous and unwelcome in recent years that it bares resemblance to being hunted and killed from an evolutionary perspective. Like most other forms of birth control, this method is not a catch-all, with some female frogs turning to an arsenal of alternative efforts when the play-dead method fails.
Other forms of mating avoidance in frogs include screaming in a ‘non-receptivity’ tone and rotating rapidly in place to prevent males from latching onto their stationary bodies. So the next time you find yourself struggling to sit through an unpleasant meal with a partner who barely resembles their Tinder photos, consider taking some dating advice from European frogs. Why bother leaving their messages unread when you can simply scream at the top of your lungs, run around in circles inside your local Olive Garden, and collapse on the floor while stiffening your joints to resemble a corpse.
