It isn’t everyday you get to read about frogs that engage in sexual dalliances so violent, the male has to remove the eggs to fertilise them due to the unfortunate death of the female frog from excessive mounting by multiple males.
From an evolutionary perspective, this seems counterproductive, but analysis of the frog Rhinella proboscadia by Izzo et al. suggests that this may not always be the case. Males of this species were able to extract the eggs from females that expired as a result of these intense competitions among males. Field observations confirmed that males could manipulate dead females to extract oocytes and that these oocytes could be fertilized to produce embryos.
From an editorial summary in Science Magazine.
T.J. Izzoab, D.J. Rodriguesabc, M. Meninad, A.P. Limaa & W.E. Magnussona. Functional necrophilia: a profitable anuran reproductive strategy? Journal of Natural History, Volume 46, Issue 47–48, 2012. DOI: 10.1080/00222933.2012.724720
