Eaten by a frog? Just make your way through its digestive system and walk right out its "cloacal aperture".
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. Sugiura published his findings Monday in the journal Current Biology.
Sugiura first tested R. attenuata's escape techniques with the frog Pelophylax nigromaculatus and found that a whopping 93.3 percent of the beetles were able to escape via the frog's "vent," or anus. He found that the beetles had similarly high success rates with four other frog species.
As Katherine J. Wu reports for the New York Times, the small beetles—iridescent black insects no longer than four or five millimeters across—were able to make the trip in a minimum time of six minutes
Speed is "imperative to success," report the authors. If the beetles are in any way delayed, digestive juices will kill them.
