A reader sent me this recently-published YouTube video titled, “Frog saves fishes life.” (It’s in Spanish, but you can see what’s going on.) The reader asked a reasonable question: why would a frog do this for fish, since they’re unrelated, unless it wanted to eat the fish later?
Well, as you can see, they’re not fish. What is going on here is that these are likely the frog’s own offspring, so we have not a demonstration of enigmatic inter-species altruism, but simply kin selection. And even if only a few of the many tadpoles (not fish!) are the frog’s progeny, it still benefits its own genes to dig that trench:
I do not know where your correspondent got the idea that the frog is helping fish. The video clearly refers to “progeny” and “father helping its own tadpoles”. End of story.
I don’t understand much Spanish, and neither did my reader. If you don’t, you could be misled. At any rate, the behavior is cool.
Here’s a video of this happening narrated by David Attenborough in English (for monoglots like me).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3uO2lO9JDk
Cool stuff!
I think I saw the daddy wink and smile right at the end. 😎
Correction. OK, it is the fault of whoever labelled the video in English.
A very cool example of kin selection!
And I had watched it in English before, but did not remember it was David Attenborough’s.
They look like two different videos to me. I think this may not be such an usual occurrence.
*might* not *may*.
Well, the first video’s title implies that it’s an isolated instance (but I don’t speak Spanish) – a reaction to an emergency.
The Attenborough video suggests it’s common, presumably as a way to ensure the eggs aren’t eaten by fish.
cr
Great videos. We use to have lots of bull frogs here but not many now. Don’t know if the Herons got most of them or something else?
Go, pollywogs, go.
Good stuff, and does away with the idea of a universal rule that males are naturally egoistic and females innately protective to offspring. While father bullfrog looks out for the kids, the tadpoles’ mom is certainly off somewhere stuffing her mouth. Point, gender roles in nature are (largely?) molded by adaptive selection.
One supposes (hypothesizes) that male frogs are territorial at breeding pools and thus can be almost sure the tadpoles are their own children. The male is not acting our of species altruism, for the “survival of the species”. Another likelihood is that drying breeding pools have been an important factor in reproductive success during the frog’s evolutionary history. The frog breeds in small pools because they lack fish and other predators. They chose pools at pond edges so that connecting canals can be easily dug. The Sage of Downe explains it.
Probably out getting a fresh mani-pedi webbing and running up the plastic at the local pond’s Bergdorf Goodman, too, huh?
Since you ask, it would be technically more correct to say that the female strategy to increase fitness is to abandon the offspring and spend her time foraging to maximize nutrient reserves and egg production. I forgive you for making fun of me.
Off Topic: the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (google noaa sotc) just posted global climate summary documenting that March 2016 had “the highest monthly temperature departure among all 1,635 months [their fancy way of saying 136 years] on record.” This is the 3rd or 4th all-time warmest months in a row.
… and it’s not even (northern Hemisphere) summer yet (which because of the larger land area, has higher average summer temperatures than the south).
I feed a couple of feral cats, but it’s because of Pascal’s Cat Wager: what if god is really a cat?
What do you mean – “What if?”?
There’s no question.
All cats are gods (in their own minds). Therefore all gods are cats. QED
I’ve heard worse theology. But it’s a few hundred thousand words too concise for SophistiCATed Theology.
It’s an African bullfrog (Pyxicephalus), not closely related to the North American bullfrog. As we’ve noted at WEIT before, there aren’t enough English names to go around for all the various sorts of anurans. Many build nests and give varying levels of parental care to their young.
For the first time in our lives, the wife and I visited the ZSL in London last weekend. the wife’s description of this frog would be a suitable alternative name : the “turd toad.” Because … well … it looks like a turd.
I am regularly fairly amazed at the intricate forms of behavior in our small brained relatives.
Perhaps our relatives are not quite so small-brained as we often suppose. The frog has at least to be able to recognise the problem. It’s the recognition – or rather the ability for it – that interests me.
Been to church recently?
In either video, at where is visible either i) the very big tympanic membrane and ii) the blackish – yellowish lower lip area of the smaller – bodied male ?
As differentiated from an overall quite – a – big larger – bodied female bullfrog’s much smaller (~the same size as its eyeball diameter) tympanic membrane and whitish jawline ?
These two videos’ individual bullfrogs appear to me to both be female ones.
Blue
You’re thinking of the North American bullfrog – Lithobates catesbeiana. As Gregory Mayer explains above, this is an African species, and it isn’t at all closely related to our North American species. They’re both just big loud frogs that happen to live in areas inhabited by Anglophones.
In most amphibian species parents do not take care of their offspring. But if they do, it is quite often the male. That’s because the territorial male can fertilize the eggs of several females. Thus, the hero of the film probably is the father of all those tadpoles…
Must be a rare occurence for a Frog to do this in the main I believe they use the old “lay em and leave em ” strategy .
Looks like they changed the title of the video after being corrected in the comments.