Tuesday, June 14, 2016

The "Kermit Sutra"? Really?


Here's an aphrodisiacal tale for the amphibian aficionados among us.

For years, scientists have thought frogs and toads used only six positions to mate. It turns out they may be wrong. In a forest in India, researchers say, they've documented a seventh.

This latest entry in the Kermit Sutra is called the dorsal straddle. Like other positions but unlike mammal sex it's aimed at letting the male fertilize eggs outside the female's body.

Researchers spent 40 nights in a dense forest, finding male Bombay night frogs by listening for their mating calls and filming the action when a female showed up.

. . .

In any case, all the frog work can come to naught. Of the 15 egg clutches the researchers monitored for the new paper, 12 were eaten by predators before hatching.

There's more at the link.

I wasn't aware that frogs were presumed to have only six mating positions.  In fact, I didn't think it was of any importance whatsoever to know about them!  Clearly, I've been living a sheltered life . . . if scientists can spend forty nights filming the froggy action, there must be more to it than meets the eye (or any other portion of anatomy, for that matter).  Is there a sort of Playfrog Club out there?  What do the waitresses wear?  Slimy skin and tadpole tails?

Nevertheless, full marks for the pun to whoever came up with "Kermit Sutra"!

Peter

3 comments:

  1. JohninMd.(HELP?!??)June 14, 2016 at 8:49 PM

    Amphibian pre-verts!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. And that "study" was probably paid for with a government grant....

    ReplyDelete

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