A species of frog has been found to operate a "functional necrophilia strategy" whereby males extract eggs from dead females and then fertilise them.
The tiny central Amazonian frog -- the Rhinella proboscidea -- is a species that engages in "explosive breeding", that is, a frantic competition for mates that takes place when large groups of animals gather for a few days. In this case, that means several hundred males congregate in small streamside ponds or headwaters for two or three days. When this happens, there is a brutal struggle to procreate, where many males become exhausted from fighting other males for receptive females. Meanwhile the females can sometimes get unintentionally crushed to death or drowned.
By: Olivia Solon, Edited by: Ian Steadman
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via Wired.co.uk
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-02/20/frog-necrophilia
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