These bullies of the frog world fertilize a lower percentage of the female's eggs. But they produce more of their own offspring, and pass on more of their own genes, than if they had not mated at all. Smaller male frogs sometimes successfully mate by being sneaky. When a male gives a mating call to attract the female, a smaller male may remain quiet, but ever alert for an approaching female. When a female passes by on her way to check out the calling male, a small, silent, satellite male may intercept her and mate.
Every animal has a mating story.
However, in spite of our having discovered enough about breeding systems to identify patterns and classify them into categories, the basic observations of individual behaviors and strategies remain to be discovered for most species. Perhaps mating patterns exist of which we are still unaware. One day, when someone adds the siren breeding story to the list, we may discover that one of our native wetland species has a fascinating story of its own. Whit Gibbons is a senior research scientist with the University of Georgia's Savannah River Ecology Lab.