{"id":33216,"date":"2018-10-30T11:24:07","date_gmt":"2018-10-30T05:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=33216"},"modified":"2018-10-30T11:24:07","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T05:54:07","slug":"zealous-frog-fathers-guard-eggs-against-cannibals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/zealous-frog-fathers-guard-eggs-against-cannibals\/","title":{"rendered":"Zealous frog fathers guard eggs against cannibals\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/sci-tech\/energy-and-environment\/zealous-frog-fathers-guard-eggs-against-cannibals\/article21827915.ece\"><strong>Zealous frog fathers guard eggs against cannibals<\/strong><\/a><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Context<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Bush frogs breeding in bamboo stems don\u2019t mind pulling off an all-nighter on protection duty<\/p>\n<p><strong>What<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Male white-spotted bush frogs zealously watch over their eggs for 37 days, leaving only once tiny froglets emerge<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why the protection?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If the adults lower their guard even for a day, other males \u2018cannibalise\u2019 the eggs, scientists say.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Breeding Pattern<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The observations of the bush frogs\u2019 parental care and novel records of cannibalism, published on December 14 in\u00a0<em>Behavioural<\/em>\u00a0<em>Ecology and Sociobiology<\/em>(a journal dedicated to animal behaviour), add details to a breeding pattern that scientists first recorded in 2014: that of the white-spotted bush frog\u00a0<em>Raorchesteschalazodes\u00a0<\/em>(rediscovered in 2011 after 125 years and found only in the Western Ghats\u2019 Agastya Hills in Kerala and Tamil Nadu) breeding inside hollow bamboo stems.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How was it observed<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Inserting an endoscope into these bamboo stems, herpetologist Seshadri K.S., who is with the National University of Singapore, observed the breeding behaviour of the critically endangered bush frogs in Tamil Nadu\u2019s KalakkadMundanthurai Tiger Reserve for his recent work.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Loud alarm calls<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The males both attended to the eggs by sitting on them [possibly to keep them hydrated], and physically guarded them by standing between the eggs and the entry hole, scaring away intruders by producing loud alarm calls and even lunging at themThe frogs deterred katydids (a kind of cricket) and even cockroaches this way.<\/p>\n<p><strong>First known instance of cannibalism in tree frogs<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>However, when these protective fathers were removed from their egg clutches, Mr.Seshadri found that a majority (more than 70%) of the eggs perished: some were eaten by ants or infected by fungi.<\/li>\n<li>However, the main reason was that other male bush frogs entered the stem and ate unattended eggs.<\/li>\n<li>This is the first known instance of cannibalism among tree frogs of the Rhacophoridae family.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Why the cannibalism?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>This could be because eggs are a source of nutrition<\/li>\n<li>But it could be a territorial display which also frees up available nesting sites.<\/li>\n<li>Egg-laying sites within bamboo stems are highly prized because ideal cavities (which have to be cracked open by other animals) are few.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Zealous frog fathers guard eggs against cannibals\u00a0 Context Bush frogs breeding in bamboo stems don\u2019t mind pulling off an all-nighter on protection duty What Male white-spotted bush frogs zealously watch over their eggs for 37 days, leaving only once tiny froglets emerge Why the protection? If the adults lower their guard even for a day,&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/zealous-frog-fathers-guard-eggs-against-cannibals\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Zealous frog fathers guard eggs against cannibals\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704763580},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33216\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}