Ultrasonic frogs show hyperacute phonotaxis to female courtship calls.

Full Abstract

Sound communication plays a vital role in frog reproduction, in which vocal advertisement is generally the domain of males. Females are typically silent, but in a few anuran species they can produce a feeble reciprocal call or rapping sounds during courtship. Males of concave-eared torrent frogs (Odorrana tormota) have demonstrated ultrasonic communication capacity. Although females of O. tormota have an unusually well-developed vocal production system, it is unclear whether or not they produce calls or are only passive partners in a communication system dominated by males. Here we show that before ovulation, gravid females of O. tormota emit calls that are distinct from males' advertisement calls, having higher fundamental frequencies and harmonics and shorter call duration. In the field and in a quiet, darkened indoor arena, these female calls evoke vocalizations and extraordinarily precise positive phonotaxis (a localization error of <1 degrees ), rivalling that of vertebrates with the highest localization acuity (barn owls, dolphins, elephants and humans). The localization accuracy of O. tormota is remarkable in light of their small head size (interaural distance of <1 cm), and suggests an additional selective advantage of high-frequency hearing beyond the ability to avoid masking by low-frequency background noise.

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Author information

Author/s: Shen, Jun-Xian (JX); Feng, Albert S (AS); Xu, Zhi-Min (ZM); Yu, Zu-Lin (ZL); Arch, Victoria S (VS); Yu, Xin-Jian (XJ); Narins, Peter M (PM);

Affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China. shenjx@sun5.ibp.ac.cn

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't; Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

Journal: Nature (Nature), published in England. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2008-Jun; vol 453 (issue 7197) : pp 914-6

Dates: Created 2008/06/12; Completed 2008/07/18;

PMID: 18469804, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Animals
China
Courtship
Female
Humans
Male

Motor Activity - physiology
Ranidae - physiology
Sex Characteristics
Sound
Ultrasonics
Vocalization, Animal - physiology

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