It’s not unheard of to find male amphibians in amplexus with an inappropriate target. Some more ridiculous examples that the AmphibiaWeb team have seen on the internet or in person included a rotting mango, shoes, and a chain of cane toads grasping a snake. Given the costs of these reproductive mistakes, Soni et al. (2024) investigated the phenomena by creating a dataset of documented misdirected amplexus. Unsurprisingly, more closely related species of similar body size and microhabitat use are more likely to be engaged in misdirected amplexus with each other. However, terrestrial and arboreal species, explosive breeders, and species found in temperate regions also have more documented cases of misdirected amplexus. These findings indicate that evolutionary relatedness, ecological niche, breeding phenology, and geography all play a role in explaining these misdirected mating attempts. And a better understanding of breeding biology can inform our conservation and management efforts, as well as enchant us.

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