Science

City frogs have sexier calls than country frogs, study finds

0 136 Less than a minute

Tngara frogs mating. Male frogs have got to continue to work hard than their forest counterparts to achieve the females, says Prof Halfwerk. Photograph: Danita Delimont/Alamy Stock Photo

Further work with 20 forest and 20 urban females revealed both preferred to hop toward a speaker playing the elaborate call of any urban male than just a forest frog’s simpler effort, although both were recorded using the same background noise. In other words, the urban call was sexier. .

How to pull if you’re an male Tngara frog | Camila Ruz

Discover more

Halfwerk said the divergence suggests frogs that have wound up within the city could have a different larynx, change or possibly a neural difference which enables these to make more difficult calls.

The team now anticipate doing genetic studies and a large-scale breeding project to discover whether or not the differences are passed on down through generations.

Stuart West, a professor of evolutionary biology with the University of Oxford merely not in the study, called the research elegant. “Human activity is having a huge impact for the environments that animals stay in,” he was quoted saying. “This study reveals that it may even influence what males need to do to get mates.”