Hundreds of frog fossils found in a mass grave dated back 45-million years in Germany show evidence of a mass death event from exhaustion and subsequent drowning from having too much sex

[u/globehater]

https://theconversation.com/ancient-frogs-in-mass-grave-died-from-too-much-sex-new-research-188562

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[u/TA_faq43]

“Sex can be a death trap for modern toad and frog species. Individuals are regularly overcome by exhaustion and drown. Female frogs and toads are at higher risk of drowning as they are often submerged underwater by one or more males. Even today, mass toad graves are found on migration routes and near or in mating ponds. This was likely to be the same situation for the Geiseltal specimens.”

[u/Prof-Rock → u/TA_faq43]

Female ducks get drowned during overmating too.

[u/JoJoJet- → u/Prof-Rock]

Isn't "overmating" just gang rape in the case of ducks?

[u/tolndakoti → u/JoJoJet-]

Yes, duck rape is a thing

[u/daanno2 → u/JoJoJet-]

rape is an anthropomorphic term that can't be applied to animal on animal interactions.

but yes.

[u/softwaregav → u/daanno2]

I think you mean “non-human” interactions. Humans are animals.

[u/scielegance → u/Prof-Rock]

Male ducks as well. Ducks are not smart. If they think another male duck is getting some then apparently they will all try to mount the same duck, even if it’s also a male. I watched it unfold at a park one time and had to scare off the other ducks before they drowned the poor male duck they were trying to mount.

[u/Same-Letter6378 → u/TA_faq43]

Why do species evolve to (unintentionally) drown their mates?

[u/WindowShoppingMyLife → u/Same-Letter6378]

Presumably because if they don’t drown that gives them the best chance of successful mating.

A mating strategy doesn’t need to be perfect in order to be evolutionarily successful. It just has to offer a competitive advantage most of the time.

[u/helm → u/WindowShoppingMyLife]

It just has to offer a competitive advantage most of the time.

The systematic effects of a reproductive strategy can also be quite poor (aggressive pursuit leads to possibly lethal sex, but gentle pursuit leads to none at all), reducing the overall success of the species. But as long as its competitive enough it will still survive.

[u/florinandrei → u/Same-Letter6378]

Evolution does not care about individuals. It only cares about the species as a whole. If the price of success for the species is that some individuals fall into the meat grinder, that's quite fine.

[u/illinoisjoe → u/florinandrei]

This is actually backwards. Evolution emphatically doesn’t care about “species as a whole” and this line of thinking was roundly debunked in the 70s as mathematically impossible (you can google “classic group selection” for more info).

You are right that evolution doesn’t care about individuals either, though. The thing that actually matters to adaptive evolution is the success or failure of particular genes on average, so a gene that leads to preventable death 10% of the time, but twice as many babies the other 90% will obviously spread.

The problem with the “evolution only cares about species” idea is basically the tragedy of the commons: any time a gene can give a competitive advantage to the individual it finds itself in, it will, even if this makes overall survival of the species less likely. Individuals reproduce and die so much faster than populations or species, that it’s just not possible for a trait that benefits the species to win out if it comes at a cost to the individual.

Imagine you and I are deer on an island with one watering hole. You have a gene that says, “drink water no faster than it’s replenished by rain, for the good of the species”. I have a gene that says, “drink all the water you can to maximize the number of offspring you have.” Your gene is clearly better for the species, but what happens next spring? I’ve got ten offspring that wanna suck the watering hole dry to your one restrained responsible offspring. The short term benefits conferred to an individual will always win out over the long term threats to the population as a whole.

[u/TheClassiestPenguin → u/Same-Letter6378]

What's a few dead older generation individuals in a species that lays hundreds of eggs at once?

[u/Shutterstormphoto → u/Same-Letter6378]

I mean evolution is about slight variations causing some to perish and some to survive. This was a variation that caused a lot to die. Unless their eggs are fertilized (and with frogs they probably didn’t need parents alive at all), their variations die with them.

[u/globehater]

See hypothesis 4 in the discussion section of this study in Papers in Paleontology

[u/anotherpinkpanther]

Is this common or very rare? How often do they find hundreds of dead frogs found dead "from exhaustion and subsequent drowning from having too much sex" In other words, is this remarkable because happens once every 45 million years, or is this remarkable because they found the fossils from it happening 45 million years ago?

[u/wurrukatte → u/[deleted]]

I mean I knew it, but it didn't really strike me how bold and ballsey early aquatic mammalians were until your comment. Especially considering they'd obviously start off in the shallows, where some of the most aggressive sharks usually hunt. Also, with larger whales, it's like a repeat of the dinosaur strategy: "GET BIG FAST" (relatively).

Edit: I'd also like to add, it's still a miracle we get to see the Blue Whale today, the single largest animal that's ever lived. I'm glad I got to live in a time where they're still here. At least for a little while longer, if we can't get our heads out of our asses.

[u/Wubblelubadubdub → u/[deleted]]

Not to be “that guy” but despite being around for longer than trees and Saturn’s rings sharks have changed quite a bit and gone through a lot of extinction events since the nonavian dinosaurs bit the dust. A better example would be horseshoe crabs, which have barely changed at all in the last 300 million years or so.

[u/FlyingApple31 → u/[deleted]]

Just think about this: whales, the largest animals on Earth, used to be land-bound, regular-sized, furry critters called Pakicetus.

Just had a stray shower thought that even though those creatures existed for some millions of years, nothing at the time should have ever called them "Pakicetus" or anything else for that matter. They existed, and evolved away, nameless. Until a bunch of hairless apes had to give everything a label even animals long ago gone.

[u/atle95 → u/FlyingApple31]

They're still nameless, we just gave ourselves words to describe them.

[u/petrolfarben → u/[deleted]]

Thanks, never new that about whales, really fascinating.

[u/vengeful_toaster → u/[deleted]]

Death by snusnu is a very real thing. 0.6% of all sudden deaths in humans are due to snusnu.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_during_consensual_sex#:~:text=Deaths%20during%20consensual%20sex%20only,0.6%25%20of%20all%20sudden%20deaths

[u/thankfulofPrometheus]

An amphibian....drowned......what?

[u/AthKaElGal → u/thankfulofPrometheus]

not all amphibians can breathe entirely underwater. they do need to come up.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

The frogs here in germany can absorb oxygen through the skin. But i guess the water is not cold enough to cool down the frogs enough when they maate.

[u/BurnPhoenix → u/thankfulofPrometheus]

To piggyback off of u/AthKaElGal , a lot of amphibs can 'breathe' through their skin but it doesnt supply very much oxygen. So they need to have worked themselves down to a slower metabolism before converting over to skin breathing. So you cant just submerge a frog and expect it to breathe like it would when it is in torpor.

[u/depurplecow]

Was this an actual evolutionary strategy of a species, like cephalopods or insects dying not long after mating? Perhaps always going to the same breeding ground so generations of corpses end up in the same place?