Ponds play host to a large number of frog species, especially during their mating season. And not surprisingly, the area is filled with different kinds of loud croaks of the males, fervently hoping the females out there would hear them. But when the place is filled with calls from a variety of species, is it even possible for the females to pick out those from the males of their own species? As incredible as it seems, it is possible! And how this plays out is just as fascinating. Come, let’s find out.
Lungs and ears
Though we associate hearing with ears, in the case of frogs, lungs too seem to be at play. In fact, these two organs work together to behave much like the way noise-cancelling devices do amplifying the sound we want to hear, and blocking all or most other sounds.
A recent study observed female American green tree frogs during the mating season, and discovered that when they hear the cacaphony of calls, they inflate their lungs with air. When this happens, their eardrums are compressed, causing them to vibrate less in response to sounds that fall within a certain frequency range. It is important to note that the call of the male American tree frog falls outside this range, and so, it can be heard clearly. Not just that. Since the calls of other species fall within this frequency range, those calls are largely filtered out. This also helps the female American green tree frogs hear the males of their species acutely. It is suspected that the females also know to adjust the sensitivity of this in-built ‘noise-cancelling’ mechanism by altering the quantity of air used in their lungs. Scientists presume that many other frog species too could be equipped with similar mechanisms to identify their own species in a cacaphony of calls.
Picture Credit : Google
