Strawberry frog

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Strawberry frog
Strawberry Frog (Oophaga pumilio)

Strawberry Frog ( Oophaga pumilio )

Systematics
Subordination : Neobatrachia
Superfamily : Dendrobatoidea
Family : Poison Dart Frogs (Dendrobatidae)
Subfamily : Dendrobatinae
Genre : Oophaga
Type : Strawberry frog
Scientific name
Oophaga pumilio
( Schmidt , 1857)

The strawberry frog ( Oophaga pumilio , Syn . : Dendrobates pumilio ) is a species from the tree dart frog family (Dendrobatidae).

description

Strawberry frogs reach a body size of only 17.2-22 millimeters. Their often strawberry-red body color serves as a warning color . In addition, there are numerous color variations, of which 15 to 30 can be distinguished. It is therefore a polymorphic species .

distribution

The habitat of the strawberry frogs includes the tropics and subtropics on the Atlantic coast from Nicaragua (south) via Costa Rica to the middle of Panama in Central America . Their occurrence is predominantly in the countryside in moist flat areas and forest areas close to the mountains, but larger populations can also be found on ruderal areas such as plantations.

Diet and Skin Poison

Strawberry frogs feed mainly on scale ants , but small arthropods , beetles and beaked beetles are also accepted.

Like many other poison dart frogs, the strawberry frog also secretes poison through the surface of the skin. The main components of the poisonous alkaloids are pumiliotoxins and allopumiliotoxins. The ability to accumulate poison is based in particular on the ant diet. Scale ants like the genera Brachymyrmex and Paratrechina produce formic acid as well as the poisonous alkaloids pumiliotoxins. Since the frogs cannot produce any poisons themselves and they are dependent on their food for poison accumulation, they remain poison-free in captivity without being fed with scale ants.

Since the habitats of the strawberry frogs do not match those of certain ants, the skin toxins are quite variable, and there are also differences between the sexes. 232 poisonous alkaloids have been identified in the skin of strawberry frogs.

Call of a male strawberry frog

behavior

Strawberry frogs are diurnal and predominantly land-dwelling. They often stay in the leaf litter. Males are very faithful to their location and guard small areas. Distribution and territorial formation of the strawberry frogs likely depend on the distribution of the preferred ants. The call of the male is reminiscent of the hum of a bee .

Reproduction

Strawberry frogs in the “La Gruta” color variant from the province of Colón, Panama
Strawberry frogs in the "blue jeans" color variant

Unlike most frogs, the males do not grip the females ( amplexus ), but rather the partners approach each other on their stomach (ventrally). The females then place 3-5 eggs on a mostly dry bromeliad funnel or the like, and the males inseminate the eggs.

Then the fertilized eggs are guarded by the male parent animal and moistened daily with water, which it transports in its cloaca . The tadpoles hatch after about 10 days. The hatched larvae are deposited individually by the female frog in water-filled bromeliad funnels ( Phytotelma ). Males were rarely seen in captivity. The larvae are cared for by the mother for up to eight weeks. She visits every bromeliad a few days apart, in which she has weaned a larva, and nourishes her offspring there with several so-called abortive eggs, i.e. unfertilized eggs. The intensive care is explained by the high spawning loss: only 5–12% of the eggs develop into tadpoles. The strawberry frog is the first frog species in which such brood care behavior was observed.

In captivity, the larvae were fed algae or eggs from other frogs, with little success. Strawberry frog larvae are obligatory egg-eaters, hence the new genus name Oophaga 'egg-eaters'.

After about a month, the strawberry frog larvae undergo a metamorphosis within a few days. Until then, they stay close to their bromeliad.

evolution

Presumably, the development of parental care only took place after the closure of the Central American land connection in the Pliocene 3–5 million years ago.

literature

Web links

Commons : Oophaga pumilio  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Single receipts

  1. a b JM Savage: The amphibians and reptiles of Costa Rica. University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London 2002.
  2. K. Summers, TW Cronin, T. Kennedy: Variation in spectral reflectance among population of Dendrobates pumilio, the strawberry poison frog, in the Bocas del Toro Archipelago, Panama. In: Journal of Biogeography. Volume 30, 2002, pp. 35-53.
  3. a b c d e f Konrad Staudt et al. : Foraging behavior and territoriality of the strawberry poison frog (Oophaga pumilio) in dependence of the presence of ants. In: Amphibia-Reptilia. Volume 31, No. 2, 2010, pp. 217-227. doi: 10.1163 / 156853810791069100 .
  4. JW Daly, CW Myers: Toxicity of Panamanian poison frogs (Dendrobates): some biological and chemical aspects. In: Science . Volume 156, 1967, pp. 970-973.
  5. a b Ralph A. Saporito et al. : Spatial and temporal patterns of alkaloid variation in the poison frog Oophaga pumilio in Costa Rica and Panama over 30 years. In: Toxicon . Volume 50, No. 6, 2007, pp. 757-778.
  6. a b T. Grant et al. : Phylogenetic systematics of dart-poison frogs and their relatives (Amphibia, Athesphatanura, Dendrobatidae). In: Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. Volume 299, 2006, pp. 1-262.
  7. ^ N. Cohen, R. Stebbins: A natural history of Amphibians, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ 1995.
  8. Ralph A. Saporito et al. : Sex-Related Differences in Alkaloid Chemical Defenses of the Dendrobatid Frog Oophaga pumilio from Cayo Nancy, Bocas del Toro, Panama⊥. In: Journal of Natural Products . Volume 73, No. 3, 2009, pp. 317-321. doi: 10.1021 / np900702d .
  9. https://apiv3.iucnredlist.org/api/v3/taxonredirect/55196 IUCN Redlist entry
  10. MA Donnelly: Reproductive phenology and age structure of Dendrobates pumilio in northeastern Costa Rica. In: Journal of Herpetology. Volume 23, 1989, pp. 362-367.
  11. ^ CW Myers, JW Daly, V. Martinez: An arboreal poison frog (Dendrobates) from western Panama. In: American Museum Novitates. Volume 2783, 1984, pp. 1-20.
  12. a b A. Haase, H. Prohl: Female activity patterns and aggressiveness in the strawberry poison frog Dendrobates pumilio (Anura: Dendrobatidae). In: Amphibia-Reptilia. Volume 23, 2002, pp. 129-140.
  13. ^ S. Limerick: Courtship behavior and oviposition of the poison-arrow frog Dendrobates pumilio. In: Herpetologica. Volume 36, 1980, pp. 69-71.
  14. ^ H. Prohl, Walter Hödl: Parental investment, potential reproductive rates, and mating system in the strawberry dart-poison frog, Dendrobates pumilio. In: Behavioral Ecological Sociobiology. Volume 46, 1999, pp. 215-220.
  15. K. Summers, LA Weigt, P. Boag, E. Bermingham: The evolution of female parental care in poison frogs of the genus Dendrobates: Evidence from mitochondrial DNA sequences. In: Herpetologica. Vol. 55, No. 2, 1999, pp. 254-270.