Cannibal frog sees surprise snack while swallowing relative

Life 9 September 2015
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(Image: Les Minter)

It’s a frog-eat-frog world. But this hungry cannibal may not have been expecting a side order of fly to appear mid-meal.

Frogs are known to eat a wide range of smaller animals, including their own kind, even as tadpoles. Now the factors that drive them to cannibalism are being revealed.

Bigger animals are more likely to prey on smaller ones, so John Measey from Stellenbosch University in South Africa and his team investigated whether larger frogs were more likely to be cannibals. They also examined whether frog-on-frog predation was more common in areas with a lot of different frog species, and when invasive frog species were present.


They found that body size is indeed a major predictor of cannibalism. There were also more sightings of frogs eating frogs in areas with a wider range of species, most likely because of the greater chance of an encounter.

They also found that invasive species had a larger proportion of frog in their diet. Investigating this could help conservationists better understand how to protect native amphibian species.

The researchers also think the size of a frog’s gape could play a role. Sabre-toothed frogs, which have an impressive pair of fangs, are known to eat their peers but we don’t know if they are a staple food source or an occasional snack.

Journal reference: PeerJ, DOI: 10.7717/peerj.1204

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