Female Frog 'Sings' During Sex

Female Frog 'Sings' During Sex
DISCOVERY NEWS (Silver Spring, Maryland) Analysis by Jennifer Viegas)

Many famous and not-so-famous singers claim to woo their mates with a tune or two during romantic encounters. It's a tactic that often works.
While this behavior is well known among humans, it's somewhat less common for amphibians, especially female frogs. But Kermit's heart would probably go pitter pat if he encountered a female Emei music frog, since new research has just revealed these gals "sing" in very sexy ways while they mate.
The rhythmic click calls of the females are so attractive to males that they move rhythmically back and forth whenever they hear these calls during mating, according to the researchers. It's as though the males need the "singing" to help them get their groove on, and maintain it. The males also shut up, which is pretty unusual for this vocal species.
The study, accepted for publication in the journal Animal Behavior, reveals a new function for female frog mating calls. Previously it was thought that such calls mostly functioned as part of duets, helping the couple to stay in sync- as crickets and other insects do- during the mating process.
But the research team, led by Jianguo Cui of the Chengdu Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, determined that the calls not only stimulated male mating, but that they also incited male-male competition.
It's all good for the females, since they not only have the males fighting over them, but the fighting also helps the females to find mates in the first place. If she calls before mating begins and the males fight, she can then find them better in the dark, silt-filled ponds of China where these frogs live.
Once the romance starts, the researchers write that "Emei music frog males moved back and forth rhythmically during copulation instead of calling, while females produced calls in the intervals between male movements. This novel behavioral pattern has not been reported for any other anuran species to our knowledge."
Moreover, when the researchers disturbed the action, by gently touching the male's back, the female continued calling until the male was released and they could go at it again.
"These results show that, in Babina, female calling can stimulate male copulatory behaviors," concludes the scientific team.
To see and hear some of what happens as these frogs mate, please Download Music frogs mating (http://blogs.discovery.com/files/music-frogs-mating.mpg).
http://news.discovery.com/animals/fe...uring-sex.html