Scientists discovered frogs that eat all the same meat

South African scientists found that some frogs eat all animals smaller than them, even the same kind of meat.

Discovered some frogs that eat all of their species

According to Live Science, the study was conducted by Stellenbosch University scientists, published on August 25 in PeerJ magazine.

Homemade frogs are not a rare thing. In fact, many reports show frogs eat the same "cousin" meat. However, there have been no studies of why they eat cannibalism, and only occur in some frog species.

"It seems that just at the right time in the right place, frogs will eat anything that moves before their eyes, " said John Measey, chairman of the project.

A big frog eats smaller children.(Photo: Les Minter).

He was interested in frog food when studying the African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis) at the Cape cape, south of Africa. Measey and his colleagues noticed that these clawed frogs are not native species and they eat native frogs.

They analyzed 355 data reporting frogs, 1/5 of which recorded cannibalistic frogs, often occurring when a frog species invaded a new area. Accordingly, their cannibalism is 40%.

According to Measey, biologists and nature conservationists can now confirm that invasive frogs are a threat to native frogs and need to be eradicated.

Several other factors also help predict how cannibalism frogs. For example, larger frogs tend to eat cannibalism. For every larger mm, the frog has 2.8% more cannibalism.

"If you put two frogs side by side, this one is larger than the other 10mm, it will have 28% more cannibalism than a small frog," Measey said.

Biodiversity also affects their appetite. In places where more and more species of frogs live, they tend to eat higher cannibalism than the area where only a few species live together.

However, some frogs only eat other species. According to Measey, it's like humans eating beef, or chicken eating bugs. In Measey's study, the number of frogs eating other offspring was three times greater than the number of the same species. He said, will continue to research to learn how they differentiate and eat other offspring.