Frogs begin to learn life in eggs

Life in the wild is not sugar. In order to survive, one must adapt to the environment from birth. Or even before birth, as bullfrogs do. Recently, scientists have found that this species of frogs begins to learn while still in the eggs. This helps them to understand what predators are found in the pond, how to recognize them and how to fight after hatching. How does this happen?

Big and gluttonous

Bullfrogs are one of the largest amphibians of their kind. Adult individuals can grow up to 600 grams, and especially large “healthy people” - up to 900. True, they are called “bulls” not because of their size, but because of “mooing”, which males attract females in the mating season.

A feature of bullfrogs is that they adapt very quickly to the environment. Given their size, this seems to be simple: suffice it to say that such a frog is ready to eat everything that fits in its mouth, including fish and even birds. But you still need to grow to such a size, and to do this in an aggressive environment is not easy.

To find out the secret to the survival of bullfrogs, scientists examined their life in the form of caviar. And they came to amazing conclusions.

Kindergarten nursery

The researchers took the eggs of frogs of the species Lithobates catesbeianus, which live in the United States, from the "native" pond, in which there were no fish, and placed in different conditions. In the first case, it was ordinary water, in the second - water with the smell of large-mouthed perch - a predator that can create many problems for tadpoles. And in the third, control pond, the smell of wounded frogs was added to the smell of perch.

Most of all scientists were interested in the third case. He imitated a situation where a predator appears near the eggs, which represents a real danger to frogs.

It turned out that the eggs perfectly recognized the danger. The tadpoles hatched in the third reservoir were 8–10% more than their counterparts from the first two. Considering that even in the second group the tadpoles did not worry about their future, the decision to grow up was influenced not only by an unfamiliar smell, but by a smell that was strongly associated with the death of brothers.

Given the adaptability of bullfrogs to a hostile environment "from a young nails" and their serious dimensions in adulthood, we can conclude that they have virtually no competitors in their ecosystem.