A beetle that heads for the ‘back door’ when eaten by a frog (2020)

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/when-beetle-gets-eaten-frog-it-forces-its-way-out-back-door-180975484/

by redbell • 3 years ago

249 126 3 years ago

smithsonianmag.com

andrewstuart• 3 years ago

A talent I have always personally wished to have, but never succeeded in.

mongol4• 3 years ago

Have you tried?

thaumasiotes5• 3 years ago

This is why you chew your food.

praptak2• 3 years ago

Most frogs don't have teeth though.

tchaffee2• 3 years ago

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/c0/64/72/c0647299ff0863268d4adafd9...

bmitc8• 3 years ago

I get this is a joke, but just bouncing off: don't humans mainly need to chew food because we have a terrible design and evolution put our lifeline of air intake in a tiny hole behind a flap right where we swallow food in a small, relatively inflexible tube and location?

thaumasiotes5• 3 years ago

No. It's true that other animals don't have the difficulty with choking on food that we do. But it's not true that other animals don't chew their food. You chew your food to make it easier to digest and so that it will fit down your throat.

And, if it's alive, so that it will be dead instead.

donatzsky• 3 years ago

No. It's actually important for an effective digestion. Not just because smaller pieces are easier to break down, but because the enzymes in the saliva start the process.

krisoft• 3 years ago

Absolutely. But at least we (and all other animals with a secondary palate) can chew while breathing. I heard that before that has evolved it put a severe caloric disadvantage on the animals since one was limited in how much chewing can happen by the need to breath.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_palate#Evolution

mongol4• 3 years ago

I fail to see how we represent terrible design. Most animals our size need to chew food with their mouth, and of them I can't think of any more successful than us, evolutionary speaking.

dev_tty013• 3 years ago

I think we have to know the order in which these features occurred. As others pointed out, chewing has other benefits. Maybe evolution took advantage of chewing to change the air intake design for some other advantage.

cityofdelusion• 3 years ago

Humans don't need to chew their food at all. If there is enough moisture, you can swallow most foods whole in chunks. Chewing is part of the digestive process (especially for plant material) to increase the surface area of the food. Even carnivores with huge throats and few or no molars can be observed chewing certain foods.

drbig2• 3 years ago

were able to make the trip in a minimum time of six minutes. (The longest journey took about four hours, per Wired.)

Between 6 and 240 minutes... How come such a wild range? Some take time sightseeing?

burnished• 3 years ago

If you get turned around and try to head in the wrong direction you just aren't going to make any headway.

myspy• 3 years ago

Because when he's turning around, he's making his way to the head.

NoMoreNicksLeft• 3 years ago

If you had ever watched the documentary, you'd know that Lemmiwinks must overcome many obstacles and trials to escape.

passion__desire• 3 years ago

The Hero's Journey. Joseph Campbell must be proud.

froggit• 3 years ago

If Lemmiwinks was one of these beetles he'd have simply turned around and gone out the same way he went in xD

Obscurity4340• 3 years ago

The eventual Lemmiwinks/Wikileaks thing was freaking genius

wanderingstan• 3 years ago

I would imagine it also has something to do with their relative sizes, and how full the frogs digestive system was at the start.

drbig2• 3 years ago

Gives a nice mental image for "digging through shit". _Literally!_

nwatson• 3 years ago

Experience. For some it's the third time.

thecodeboy• 3 years ago

I feel bad for the beetle in this experiment. It must have spent a lot of its energy reserve to emerge out of the frog, probably to have been swallowed again.

Natsu• 3 years ago

Well the one where they immobilized the legs just got eaten, so... yeah.

The photos of the escape make me imagine the world's strangest motivational "hang in there" type of poster.

AdamN• 3 years ago

"Never say Never!" "There is no try, only do"

tanseydavid• 3 years ago

I think they should rename the insect to the "Andy Dufresne Beetle" -- the escape totally reminds me of Shawshank Redemption.

hhh• 3 years ago

One must imagine the beetle happy

Duster — Me And The Birds starts playing

hutzlibu3• 3 years ago

"probably to have been swallowed again"

Likely not. Animal trials are usually one use, to get the best data. And the animals in use get usually killed afterwards anyway. If you like animals, you probably do not want to learn too many details about it all.

jonasdegendt• 3 years ago

This depends, I used to work at a biotech company and when the dogs there were retired from their trial, the employees would typically "adopt" them and try and give them another good couple of months.

They usually didn't make it very long but it's something. This was dogs though, so advanced stages of the trial, early stage vermin definitely didn't get the same treatment.

Side story: I did IT there and could access just about any building on campus, but whenever I had to go to the animal testing building to do whatever maintenance it was, I had a security guard escort and loom over me wherever I went. From what I was told they had an animal rights group infiltrate and attempt to release all of the animals a couple of years before.

CaptainNegative• 3 years ago

If you truly like animals, you probably want to learn all about it and see what you can do to stop it.

hackernewds3• 3 years ago

There is a version of beetle that incapacitates the frog's legs and eats it slowly while it is immobilized. Nature is metal.

mufty• 3 years ago

This is such an interesting read. I’m wondering if this behavior is only observed between this Japanese frog and beetle, or perhaps it’s spread throughout nature.

Keysh• 3 years ago

From the article

"He found that the beetles had similarly high success rates with four other frog species....

"When swallowed, other similar water beetles were killed and digested by the frog...."

thih9• 3 years ago

covered in feces, but otherwise active and seemingly healthy

The accuracy and level of detail makes me speechless.

Then again, I saw the title and continued reading, so I knew what I was getting into.

At least I have more vocabulary for when my dog rolls in something on a walk.

rob742• 3 years ago

Yes, "my dog is covered in feces" does sound more elegant than "my dog just rolled in sh*t" - but how you articulate it doesn't improve the situation if the dog in question is sitting next to you...

VeninVidiaVicii• 3 years ago

…but otherwise active and seemingly healthy!

A hilarious non-sequitur for the dog scenario.

m3047• 3 years ago

Our feral cat only rolled in high quality horse shit. He was very particular, as well as proud of his smelliness.

emiliobumachar• 3 years ago

How does it breathe in there?

rob742• 3 years ago

It's a water beetle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_beetle), that probably helps.

jakzurr• 3 years ago

I see a real benefit to the beetle, if it can get out. But I'm wondering, is there any benefit to the frog from consuming this type of "fiber"?

bentobean• 3 years ago

Interesting. Free colon cleanse. Now we just need to find the beetle species that can perform the same feat in humans.

beeforpork2• 3 years ago

Maybe the same beetle would work. Has anyone tried?

ralgozino• 3 years ago

I guess you've never eaten boiled corn grains

jkubicek• 3 years ago

Have you ever had an itch that you just can't reach?

SkipperCat• 3 years ago

This beats every post Ive seen on Reddit's r/prolifetip.

JKCalhoun• 3 years ago

"Well, you wouldn't shit me now, would you?"

(Sorry, it's the oh-so-appropriate punch line from a joke in McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971).)

coryfklein• 3 years ago

Whoever wrote this is genius, how many times in your career do you get the opportunity to write this stuff. So many amazing quotes in this article, I’m dying. 10/10 would read again.

tchaffee2• 3 years ago

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/when-beetle-gets-e...

beeforpork2• 3 years ago

OMG, this detail -- it itches already:

Sugiura suspects that the beetles also use their legs to stimulate the frog’s cloacal sphincter, causing it to defecate. However, he’ll need to run more tests to be sure...

tosser0001• 3 years ago

I like how the diagram is captioned "A hypothetical escape route ..." as if the frog's gut were a cave system with different potential passageways and not a single path out

zabzonk• 3 years ago

definite Ig Nobel Prize candidate

HarHarVeryFunny• 3 years ago

Inspiration for this ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-pDUO-epfg

tiarafawn• 3 years ago

Reminds me of the German poem "Storch und Schleiche" [1] (LLM translation):

  A stork once strolled by the pond's edge,
  where he spotted a blind slow-worm, a hedge.
  The stork exclaimed, "Oh, this is quite grand!"
  and devoured it, all, without a reprimand.

  The slow-worm lay in the stork's belly,
  and both found this situation rather smelly.
  The blind slow-worm then spoke with dismay,
  "Such horror!" and slipped through the back door away.

  The stork, vexed by this unhappy twist,
  couldn't believe he'd let the slow-worm persist.
  So, without hesitation or delay,
  he ate the slow-worm again the same way.

  He cleverly wedged the back door tight,
  so the blind slow-worm could not escape his sight.
  The stork called in, with a cunning tone:
  "Well, if you can, try escaping on your own!"

  The sly slow-worm found the front door clear,
  and promptly made his escape with no fear.
  But the stork, filled with anger and spite,
  ate the slow-worm once more, sealing his plight.

  In a crafty invention, the stork's mind did revel,
  he connected both doors to secure his prey well.
  Then, addressing the slow-worm inside without fail,
  "Now get ready for a round trip, without fail!"

[1] https://www.schwaben-kultur.de/home/stat/larchiv/447.html

ihaveajob• 3 years ago

Inspiration for The Human Centipede?

dreamcompiler• 3 years ago

Ze Frank is probably working on his doc about this right now.

redbell• 3 years ago

So, the whole journey of the beetle be like: f(x)=x

dev_tty013• 3 years ago

You left off a term: F(x) = x + S

BaseballPhysics• 3 years ago

This feels like a perfect metaphor for my career to date...

jwcacces• 3 years ago

The beetle crawled to freedom through five hundred yards of shit-smelling foulness I can't even imagine. Or maybe I just don't want to. The length of five football fields. Just shy of half a mile. I guess it comes down to a simple choice. Get busy living or get busy dying.

chongli4• 3 years ago

Thanks! This beetle reminded me of Andy Dufresne as well! What a champion of survival this little creature is!

ncr100• 3 years ago

That person was also referenced in the videogame Trover Saves the Universe:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtiqS1l_SbM Very NSFW language.

Hilarious, foul and disgusting coprophilia .. "back magic".

waltwalther• 3 years ago

Impossible not to read in Morgan Freeman's voice. This might be the best comment I have ever seen on HN. Thank you.

warent• 3 years ago

For anyone wondering apparently this is a play on a quote from Shawshank Redemption, (I've never seen the movie!)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111161/characters/nm0000151

ManuelKiessling• 3 years ago

Dude put down whatever you are doing and watch that movie right now!

LanceH2• 3 years ago

Topologically, the beetle was never inside the frog.

qazpot• 3 years ago

The beetle fell into a hole and came out the otherside.

LanceH2• 3 years ago

Same side. The frog can be modelled as a torus for purposes of this beetle's navigation.

Jenkins76542• 3 years ago

Thanks for sharing this.

Jenkins76542• 3 years ago

I tried..https://colasocialsecurity.info/

Dowwie• 3 years ago

When you're going through hell, keep going

tamimio• 3 years ago

What’s the point of escaping when you are going to be swallowed again? (I think that frog ate it after, but the video cut before that)

hackernewds3• 3 years ago

Free waterslide

i_k_k• 3 years ago

“According to a Kobe University statement, this study marks the first time that researchers have witnessed prey quickly and actively escape the body of its predator after being eaten.”

I present my favorite video of the rough-skinned newt “actively escaping” from a bullfrog’s body after being eaten:

https://youtu.be/kvBi5Wv8-qg?t=99

tsavo• 3 years ago

Unintentional spelunking by a beetle

1-6• 3 years ago

It makes me wonder what other living organisms are able to defeat the digestive tract and continue living once it is expelled out of the host. There has to be a name for this phenomenon.

ChainOfFools• 3 years ago

"grad school"

A beetle that heads for the ‘back door’ when eaten by a frog (2020)

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