Preininger, Doris and Stiegler, Michael J and Gururaja, KV and Vijayakumar, SP and Torsekar, Varun R and Sztatecsny, Marc and Hoedl, Walter (2013) Getting a kick out of it: multimodal signalling during male-male encounters in the foot-flagging frog Micrixalus aff. saxicola from the Western Ghats of India. In: CURRENT SCIENCE, 105 (12). pp. 1735-1740.
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Abstract
Several anuran species use multimodal signals to communicate in diverse social contexts. Our study describes acoustic and visual behaviours of the Small Torrent Frog (Micrixalus aff. saxicola), a diurnal frog endemic to the Western Ghats of India. During agonistic interactions males display advertisement calls, foot-flagging and tapping (foot lifting) behaviours to signal the readiness to defend perching sites in perennial streams. Results from a quantitative video analysis of male-male interactions indicate that foot-flagging displays were used as directional signals toward the opponent male, but were less abundant than calls. The acoustic and visual signals were not functionally linked. The call of Micrixalus aff. saxicola thereby did not act as an alert signal. Analysis of behavioural transitions revealed that kicking behaviours (physical attacks) significantly elicited kicks from interacting males. We suggest that foot-flagging displays ritualized from this frequently observed fighting technique to reduce physical attacks.
| Item Type: | Journal Article |
|---|---|
| Publication: | CURRENT SCIENCE |
| Publisher: | INDIAN ACAD SCIENCES |
| Additional Information: | Copyright for this article belongs to the INDIAN ACAD SCIENCES,INDIA |
| Keywords: | Anura; Micrixalidae; physical attack; small torrent frog; visual communication |
| Department/Centre: | Division of Biological Sciences > Centre for Ecological Sciences Division of Interdisciplinary Sciences > Center for Infrastructure, Sustainable Transportation and Urban Planning (CiSTUP) |
| Date Deposited: | 21 Feb 2014 09:21 |
| Last Modified: | 21 Feb 2014 09:22 |
| URI: | http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/48430 |
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