In order to avoid becoming something else’s next meal, animals have evolved a wide variety of strategies. The ability to blend into your surroundings. Speed to escape predators. Or bright colors that advertise your poisonous nature.
But in this interesting case, you can also add “your choice of friend” to that list.
When you’re a small frog in the jungle, you best be on the lookout as you’re on the menu of a variety of other animals. At about a half inch in length, frogs in the family microhylid – known as narrow-mouthed frogs – certainly fall into that category.
But thanks to the unusual relationship some of these frogs in Peru, India and Sri Lanka have developed with different species of rather large tarantulas, they have a unique defense …an eight-legged bodyguard.
Although frogs of this size are often meals for these spiders, certain narrow-mouthed frogs are given a pass and actually cohabitate with their arachnid friends.
The frogs’ skin has toxins that make them taste terrible to the tarantulas, which is thought to serve as a way for the spiders to recognize their hoppy little friends. Most other predators are not going to mess with a tarantula of this size, so the frogs can safely hangout with their protectors.
But do the spiders get anything from this relationship?
The remains of the spider’s previous meals attract small invertebrates, particularly ants, that are one of the major predators of spider eggs. With a craving for these insect raiders, the frogs play an important role in spider den pest control, therefore protecting the spider’s next generation.
The moral to this story? When you’re a small critter in a dangerous world, sometimes it pays to choose your friends wisely.