A shoe, a coconut, a tennis ball, a dead frog, a turtle, a mango, a ruler, a gecko, and a lump of yack dung — these are just some of the odd things frogs have been recorded trying to have sex with.
Frog sex, in most species, involves the male gripping onto the female from behind for long periods of time — from hours to days — until they’ve succeeded in fertilizing their eggs. But mating can be very competitive for these web-footed amphibians, resulting in some individual mistakenly trying to copulate with things that can’t actually give them any offspring, a phenomenon known to science as “misdirected amplexus”.
This strange behavior has long puzzled scientists. They're continuing to dig into its origins, potential benefits and the reasons behind it, as well as whether climate change is to blame for it seemingly becoming more and more common.
How Common Is Misdirected Amplexus in Frogs?
In the 100 years between 1920 and 2020, scientists have formally taken note of at least 378 cases of “misdirected amplexus”, according to a 2022 research paper published in the journal Ecology.
