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Water beetles that survive being swallowed by frogs
- ChuckMcM 6y agoThat would make an interesting update to Beatrix Potter's Jeremy Fisher story :-).
- justinclift 6y agoHeh Heh Heh. Common movie trope: The Protagonist, swallowed whole, heroically cuts their way out of the monsters' gullet. Reality: The Protagonist, swallowed whole, holds their breath and tickles the monsters sphincter from the inside... Doesn't have the same ring to it. ;)
- phyzome 6y ago> dank and airless internal tunnel It can't be "dank" if it's entirely liquid filled, come on.
- serf 6y ago>It can't be "dank" if it's entirely liquid filled, come on. 'disagreeably damp, musty, and typically cold.' I imagine I'd describe visiting a predators GI tract as 'disagreeably damp', among other things. An aside : I agree that I haven't heard it used in the context of submerging, but the definition seems to allot for it?
- ultrarunner 6y agoI wouldn't expect a "dank basement" to require SCUBA gear. I agree with GP that this word use struck me as odd and distracting. Not sure what I expected to read about a beetle navigating an intestinal tract, but still.
- phyzome 6y agoBut probably not very cold, or musty for that matter. And "damp" would only be used ironically to describe an entirely aqueous environment. "Hmm, I don't like the ocean, it's a bit damp."
- imglorp 6y agoSlowing metabolism for a few hours is not too big a deal, but the adaptations to survive stomach acids maybe is? Frogs eat all manners of arthropods whole, without macerating, so whatever's down there is pretty aggressive.
- ycombinete 6y agoPossibly a first evolutionary step to becoming an internal parasite.
- justinclift 6y agoAlso, a way for the intestinal flora of frogs to be spread to other frogs. Which may be fairly unique in itself? That could have all kinds of other weird and wonderful follow on effects for the frog population.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago> Also, a way for the intestinal flora of frogs to be spread to other frogs. > Which may be fairly unique in itself? Considering the number of diseases that are spread, human to human, by oral consumption of feces - probably not.
- akiselev 6y agoThere are mammals like rabbits that eat their own feces to get a second pass at digestion. Evolution has created an unbelievable amount of diversity in the natural world - it's a mistake to judge it by our own immune systems.
- buran77 6y agoGP may have been objecting to the uniqueness of the trait, not its existence.
- justinclift 6y agoNah, I'd just not been able to think off hand of an example of intestinal flora being shared (potentially widely) among members of a species. The rabbits example is a good one to illustrate it already does happen. :)
- 6y ago
- daxfohl 6y agoMaybe this is the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.
- noman-land 6y ago"In most of the experiments, the beetles reappeared within six hours, slipping out of a frog's anus, or vent. Though muscles typically hold the vent tightly shut, those muscles loosen up when the frog poops; the beetles could be stimulating the frogs' defecation reflex in order to temporarily open this unusual emergency exit, according to the new study."
- wiradikusuma 6y ago"I used a video camera to record the behavior" -- and no video in the article?
- JoBrad 6y agoFound it, on another (insecure) site: http://www.asahi.com/sp/ajw/articles/13609620 http://www.asahi.com/sp/ajw/articles/13609620