A tale of town frog and country frog

IN THE FABLE of the town mouse and the country mouse it is the country mouse who comes out on top. When he visits the city he discovers the fancy living enjoyed by his urban cousin comes at a heavy price of mortal danger. The countryside, though duller, is safer. It is all very moral. But research on some real animals that have living arrangements similar to those of Aesop’s pair of rodents suggests it is wrong.Túngara frogs are tropical New World creatures that live both in the countryside and in towns. That made them attractive to Wouter Halfwerk of the Free University of Amsterdam, who wants to understand how urban life affects animal communications, and whether animals are evolving by natural selection to deal with the city, rather than just learning to do so.