# Frogs & Toads > Pacman Frogs >  How do frogs kill their prey?

## Elldee

Like when I see pacman frogs eating giant mice or even relatively large insects. Couldn't the mice/bug bite inside its throat before it dies? Sometimes frogs seem to swallow their prey when its alive.

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## Ted

All kinds of things could happen when a frog eats something.i remember watching a nature show once where an African bullfrog sat in front of a hole.Black scorpions starting pouring out of the hole and the frog sat there and gobbled them up one by one.it must of ate at least 4 large scorpions.ive always wondered if the frog survived that.

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## DesertHeat

A bite from the inside is extremely unlikely. In the case of mice the compressive force of the frogs jaws prevents the mouse from breathing and really even moving. In the case of insects with an exoskeleton it pretty much just crushes them.

In the case of worms, which can continue to function despite damage to various segments of their bodies, I've seen and felt them moving in my frogs stomachs after being swollowed which is really cool!  :Smile: 

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## Hypnotic

I think pacmans mainly kill but suffocation, strangulation and breaking bones in prey. They will swallow small prey alive, and simply digest them I assume. I have seen one of my bigger females swallow a mouse live when I fed them live a long time ago.
But most of my frogs just seem to strangle the life out of them. I've also seen frog bellies move from swallowed prey, sometimes you can see a worm trying to poke through.  :Smile:

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## Colleen/Jerrod

Internal damage caused by usually only occurs if the prey item is too large.

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## DVirginiana

I've never fed live rodents/fish to mine, but now I'm curious; When they get larger live prey, will they wait until it's either dead or very weak to swallow it completely?
Mine will often hold worms in her mouth/throat for a bit before actually swallowing.  Not sure if that's actually a behavior to weaken the prey, or if it's just something she does.

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## Hypnotic

When I fed my adult female live, she always bit down untill the prey stopped moving. I think it is a behaviour to weaken the prey, in the wild they must have some pretty epic struggles.

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## WorldClassFrogCoddler

> In the case of worms, which can continue to function despite damage to various segments of their bodies, I've seen and felt them moving in my frogs stomachs after being swollowed which is really cool!


Just want to confirm Desert Heat's research there, my better half just put Bubba up after he ate a big worm, and she came back and said '.....ewwww.... I could still feel the worm inside Bubba... WIGGLING!' I think she is traumatized.

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ElfDa

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## limnologist

> All kinds of things could happen when a frog eats something.i remember watching a nature show once where an African bullfrog sat in front of a hole.Black scorpions starting pouring out of the hole and the frog sat there and gobbled them up one by one.it must of ate at least 4 large scorpions.ive always wondered if the frog survived that.


Usually if the animal is native, and is being eaten by a fellow native, then the predator survives. There are cases where an animal gets sick or gets a parasite and eats things it knows to be dangerous, usually this kills it.

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## limnologist

animals such as frogs and snakes that must swallow live animals whole have an extremely strong stomach acid the begins breaking down the prey item immediately after consumption. Frogs usually crush and sufficate their prey. And some frogs ( pixies for example) are immune to such things like (in the case of the pixie frog) scorpions.

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ElfDa

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