Swallowed by a frog, this beetle can come out alive

For a small aquatic beetle, being swallowed whole by a frog seems to close the story. In Shinji Sugiura’s experiments, however, the sequel took an unexpected direction. Regimbartia attenuata left the body of their predator alive, through the opposite end of the one through which they had entered.

In a trial involving fifteen insects swallowed by a frog species, fourteen emerged alive. The deadlines ranged from a few minutes to several hours. The results support a role for the movement of the insect in this flight, rather than a simple passive passage that it would undergo the rhythm without intervening.

The camera did not follow each beetle inside the digestive system: the details of its journey and the exact way it promotes its exit remain explanations to examine. The external observation is already striking. Under these laboratory conditions, a tiny prey crossed the body of the animal that had just swallowed it, before returning to its activity.