Fascinating amphibians or harmful pests?
Frogs and toads have a bit of a mixed reputation
and that extends to their sex life.
Some of it's really fascinating and quite ingenious.
And some of it's macabre.
So, what is some of the slimy secrets
of amphibian sex?
Ooh, we got...
Whoa!
(GASPS)
How must it feel when they come out of your back?
Blop!
So, this is a really interesting Surinam toad.
So, when this sexy mama has sex with her suitor,
he actually pushes the egg sort of up onto
her spongy-fleshed back.
And once they're in there, the skin eventually grows over,
sealing them into a perfect little chamber,
and they develop in there.
And when the moment is right, they split open the skin.
It's like throwing back the hatch of, like, a submarine
and burst into the water and, like, swim off.
And they are little tiny, dark froglets,
perfectly-formed out of her back.
Ooh!
So, he's a bullfrog, right?
(BAM!)
Whoa! (LAUGHS)
So, the African bullfrog is a beefy boy.
He can get up to, like, two kilograms of frog.
And he does partake in parental care.
That means that when the tadpoles are in the water,
he'll actually actively defend them.
And I think that's what's happening in this video.
He has got his eyes locked on that human
as a potential predator and he is going for it.
(BAM!)
Ooh, crikey!
God...
All right. Well...
Fighting African bullfrogs
because they've got the yellow underarms.
And as a lot of conflicts in the natural world,
it's generally about territory or sex.
It's like a pub brawl.
But over a woman.
There might be a female in your puddle
that you are protecting and they won't hold back.
These bullfrogs, if they win the fight,
if they kill their opponent,
will actually eat each other.
Yeah...
Amplexus alert, which is...
a love hug?
(LAUGHS)
Amplexus is what frogs do when they are mating.
Now, in almost all cases, frog egg fertilisation
occurs outside the body.
So, the male likes to piggyback onto the female in some way.
The female releases eggs out of her cloaca
and they release, in this case,
into the water in this long string of slimy sort of stuff.
The male is piggybacked on top of her,
holding on really tight,
and he is releasing sperm at the same time.
Oh, all right. See you later, love.
Bye. We're done here. See ya.
It's just like, he's like... and off he goes.
Oooh.
Group sex isn't all it's cracked up to be, guys.
So, these are UK common toads
and this happens in a lot of different species of toads.
They make these mating balls basically
where it's just a squirming mess of
testosterone-driven male toads
with probably a female toad at the middle.
And they wrestle and mate for, like, two days on end.
This can and often does result in female toad death
because she just gets drowned,
but also other male toads, if they're on the middle
part close to the female, they can just drown as well.
(CROAKS)
Frog calls almost universally,
it's always males and they are calling for sex.
I want it. Come get it.
But yelling out, ''Sex, sex, sex!'' at the top of your lungs
is apparently quite good at getting sex.
It also lets all the predators know where you are.
So, there is some potential danger for the males
in moaning at the top of their lungs like this.
Huh?
Oh! They're making a nest.
So, there's so many ways that frogs care for their young.
And some make these amazing hanging nests for their eggs.
So, what's actually happening is the female is excreting
a sort of mucus from her cloaca.
And what it does is creates a little bubble holder
for all the eggs and the semen to roll into.
So, what she's doing is frothing it with her back legs,
making sure that her eggs have lots of moisture
because frog eggs are soft-shelled
and they need to be hydrated.
They don't like drying out.
That means they become unviable.
However you feel about frogs and toads,
I think we can agree that they've got ingenious mating methods
and some pretty good ways of bringing up their young.
They are perfectly adapted to their environment
wherever they are in the world.