The name “murder hornet” strikes fear into the hearts of men, but it definitely does not strike fear into the hearts of frogs, who, scientists have discovered, will shrug off a murder hornet’s sting and eat it anyway.
A new study from Kobe University biologist Shinji Sugiura, published in the journal Ecosphere, shows black-spotted pond frogs casually wolfing down northern giant hornets (the so-called “murder hornets”) while absorbing multiple stings to the face.
Sugiura set up tanks pairing frogs with three species of Japanese hornets, including the northern giant hornet, whose quarter-inch stinger is built from a repurposed egg-laying organ and loaded with venom meant to wreck birds and mammals.
The hornets quickly got to work doing what they do best: stabbing. They jabbed the frogs’ mouths, tongues, and even eyeballs. The frogs did not give a shit. They gulped the hornets down whole. Nearly 80 percent of the frogs facing the giant hornet finished their meal. The success rate was even higher with other hornet species.
Slow-motion footage showed frogs being repeatedly tagged, yet suffering zero visible injury or distress. Sugiura suggests the amphibians’ bodies just aren’t wired to be vulnerable to hornet venom.
Speaking to the New York Times, Brian Gall, a biologist at Hanover College, says this is part of a bigger superpower shared by amphibians: iron stomachs filled with mucus that can engulf prey. That’s why frogs and toads around the world have been known to eat the insect equivalent of a baseball bat with a bunch of rusty nails driven through it, like velvet ants and Brazilian yellow scorpions.
Some amphibians also make their own toxins, meaning that their bodies are essentially inoculating them from the same kind of poisons that insects would attack them with.
Sugiura thinks that if frogs have biological systems that dull pain or neutralize venom, studying them might help researchers find new ways to reduce inflammation or dull the agony of stings and bites.
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