For most frogs, motherhood begins and ends with the release of hundreds of eggs into a sizable body of water and then hopping or swimming away.
For most frogs, motherhood begins and ends with the release of hundreds of eggs into a sizable body of water and then hopping or swimming away.
Two curious exceptions are the Little Devil frog of Ecuador and the Climbing Mantella of Madagascar. The females of both poison frog species lay only a few eggs at a time, depositing each one into its own tiny pool formed from the cupped leaves of native rainforest plants. The mothers then spend months painstakingly feeding each tadpole unfertilized eggs until they are ready to leave their aquatic nests.
Why all the devotion? A team led by Stanford biologist Lauren O’Connell has discovered an intriguing possible answer.
In a new study published Nov. 21 in the journal Current Biology, the scientists report that the nutritious eggs the frogs feed their hatchlings are also laced with poisons, likely as a way of passing chemical defenses on to the next generation.
Read more at Stanford University
Image: A Climbing Mantella tadpole with a recently laid unfertilized egg. (Image credit: Alexandre Roland)
