New research shows female plains spadefoot toads listen up for the best mate.
The one thing about species that most people probably remember from high school science class is that when it comes to sex, they generally stick to their own kind. Hybrids happen, but they are usually thought to be accidental, and the results typically have drawbacks — think of how a horse crossed with a donkey results in a sterile mule.
But the reality is more complicated than that. Karin Pfennig, an evolutionary biologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has for years been observing something strange in the southwestern U.S. Female plains spadefoot toads sometimes choose to ignore the males of their own species, and instead mate with males from a closely related species, the Mexican spadefoot toad. Read more in Inside Science.