Just like you tune a radio to different frequencies, the Chinese river frog can tune its ears to hear higher frequencies and thus help it survive. How is this useful for survival?

This frog lives in rivers and streams, around rain and bad weather. Having the ability to tune-out certain frequencies makes it easy for the frog to find a mate, and hear predators and prey alike. How does it work exactly?

Pretend you're standing in the forest, next to a waterfall and it's raining. But you're starving and need some food now. How are you going to hear anything over the rain, waterfall and thunder? The Chinese river frog simply tunes out lower frequencies (like rain drops and thunder), and tunes-in to high frequencies like the sound of other frogs, or chirping crickets. This makes it easy for the frog to survive no matter what nature sounds like. They have evolved the biological equivalent of earmuffs to block out all sounds of a certain frequency range.

If conditions get bad enough, the frog can just say "I don't want to hear this anymore", and tunes into a different channel.

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