A new study published in the Royal Society Open Science journal has found that the female European common frog uses some very interesting tactics to avoid unwanted male attention during their "explosive" mating season.

As the study sums up,

We observed three female avoidance behaviours, namely ‘rotation', ‘release call(s)' and tonic immobility (death feigning).

In common language, I'll just say these three tactics are roughly the equivalent of running away, yelling for help, and faking your own death.

All eerily similar to the human female's response to unwanted male attention.

We thought humans invented "ghosting" in the recent past. As it turns out, female frogs have been doing all that and more for centuries.

The study goes on to explain the frog's death-feigning behavior saying,

Tonic immobility as a tactic to avoid mating or male harassment has only been observed in a handful of species and only in one other amphibian. Our observations show that females in explosive breeding frogs may not be as passive and helpless as previously thought.

While other species have been known to fake their deaths to avoid predators, these female frogs are unique in using induced rigor mortis - stretching out their arms and legs to appear dead - to avoid mating with guys they aren't interested in.

Guys, take note: You may think a girl is playing hard to get, but she's probably just playing dead.

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