Female frogs play dead to avoid mating, study finds

BERLIN (CBS 58) -- Birds do it bees do it but wait until you see what female frogs do to avoid doing it. 

Like in fairytales, real male frogs tend to be aggressive. That's when female frogs fake being dead to avoid having to reproduce. 

Experts call it "feigning death," but the technical term is "tonic immobility." 

It's one of the mating avoidance behaviors described in a study from the Museum of Natural History in Berlin. 

Only after the male and another female he was chasing collided with the "dead" frog did she spring back to life. 

However, the study's main author says she doesn't believe the female frogs are "consciously" faking it -- rather it's an automatic stress response.