(hey i hv snt u d pics of d animals dat v can do)

Definition of parental care

Parental care may be defined as all activities that are directed by an animal
towards the protection and maintenance of its own offspring or those of a near
relative.
Parental Care in Amphibians
By comparison with birds and mammals, amphibians generally have been
thought to exhibit little parental care. However, in recent years both field and
laboratory studies have provided evidence for an astonishing array of parental
care in amphibians. Parental care may be defined as any behavior exhibited by
a parent toward its offspring that Increases the offspring’s chances of survival
(Trivers. 1972); this investment may reduce the parent’s ability to invest in
additional offspring. Among amphibians, parental care Includes attendance of
the eggs, transportation of eggs or larvae, and feeding of larvae.
Parental care is associated only with those species that place their eggs in
single clusters, never with those that scatter their eggs in aquatic situations.
Nest construction, either prior to or during opposition, is not considered to be
parental care, although in some species that construct nests, one parent may
attend the eggs. Likewise, the retention of eggs in the oviducts, even though
nourishment is provided to the developing young, is not considered to be
parental care.
There are various ways by which the parental care is manifested in amphibians.
1. Selection of Site:
Some amphibians lay their eggs in safe and moist land, very near to water.
Ø      Rhacophorus schlegli of Japan, lays eggs in a hole on muddy bank of
river or pond with foamy mucus cover to prevent the eggs from drying.
Ø      In Gyrinophilus the eggs are laid under the stones in stream. Sometimes,
the eggs are taken up on the body.
Ø      In case of Hylodes, eggs are laid on the under surface of leaves hanging
above water.

.
2. Defending Eggs:
Ø      Males of green frog Rana clamitans defend their eggs by not allowing
small sized intruders in their territories.
Ø      Males of Mantophryne robusta holds with hands cluster of eggs in
gelatinous envelop.
4. Formation of Nests:
Some amphibians build nests for deposition of eggs.
Ø      Mud Nest: Hyla faber digs small holes in the mud for deposition and
development of the eggs.
Ø      Leaf Nest: In a South American tree frog Phyllomedusa hypochondrales,
margin of the leaves are folded and glued together which acts as nest for the
eggs.
Ø      Shoot Nest: Triton construct the nest by fixing the shoots with a
gelatinous secretion.
. Direct development:
Some terrestrial or tree frogs, like Hylodes and Hyla nebulosa, the eggs hatch
5directly into tiny juveniles avoiding predator attach and larval mortality.(for
dis if u want v can make d frog if juvnles can b mad den v can go ahead wid it).
6. Carrying eggs over the body
i) Coiling around eggs:
Ø      Amphuima, Ichthyphis females after laying eggs guard them by coiling
body till the eggs hatch.
(il do ichthyopis im planing 2 do it by sunday or asap.doing wid mseal.)
ii) Transferring tadpoles to water:
Ø      Phylobates, Pelobates species inhabiting tropical Africa and South
America hold the newly hatched tadpoles with their mouth and transport them
to water.(dnt knw if v can do dis.i think its betr 2 leave dis))
iv) Eggs glued to the body:
Ø      Salamander Desmognathus fuscus females carry cluster of eggs glued to
their body.
Ø      In Sri Lankan tree frog, Rhacophorus reticulates, the eggs are glued to the
belly of the females.
Ø      In a European frog, Alytes obstericans, instead of female’s parental care,
the male entangles the eggs around his hind legs.(v can do salamander.)
iv) Eggs in back pouches:
Ø      In Hyla goeldii, the females carry the eggs on their back.
Ø      In Pipa pipa, the eggs are carried by females on the back.(any 1)
7. Carrying eggs over the body:
Ø      In Arthroleptis, the larvae are attached to the males and are carried from
one water body to other.
8. Organs as brooding pouches:
Ø      South American male frog of Rhinoderma darwinii keeps fertilized eggs
in his vocal sacs where they undergo complete development.
Ø      In Hylambates breviceps, the female carries eggs in her buccal cavity.
9. Viviparity:
Ø      A special type of reproductive behavior is observed in Salamandra
atra and S. maculosa. The eggs are placed inside the uterine cavity where the
entire development takes place. The uterine wall functions physiologically as
primitive placenta.

PARENTAL CARE
PARENTAL CARE IN AMPHIBIA
            Parental care means care of the eggs or juveniles till they reach the
reproductive age. Parental care evolved to reduce the energy expenditure on
reproduction, as in the absence of it animals must produce millions of eggs so
that few could survive to replace the parents to ensure existence of the
species. Lower animals produce excessively large number of eggs and do not
exhibit parental care but higher animals such as vertebrates, show varied
degree of parental care in order to reduce the energy expenditure in
reproduction. Terrestrial environment being much harsher than the aquatic
one, amphibians were the first vertebrates to have evolved different kinds of
parental care to protect their young ones as given in the following description.

APODA (=GYMNOPHIONA)

Caecilians or apoda are long, worm-like legless amphibians having

about 165 species in 33 genera. Little is known about these animals, most of
which are tropical or subtropical, and occur in Central and South America,
Africa, and south and Southeast Asia.   

Caecilians exhibit parental care. The female coils around the egg
clutch and periodically rotates it, till the eggs hatch. The mother caecilian does
not take any food during the parental care period. The Beddome’s
Caecilian,Ichthyophis beddomei, found in Kerala (India) is known to have 25
to 38 eggs in an egg clutch. Egg size ranges from 6 mm at the time of laying
to 12 mm at the time of hatching. Eggs generally hatch in 60 to 90 days. A
newly hatched larva possesses 3 pairs of external pinnate gills.

Mothers of the Kenyan caecilian, Boulengerula taitanus provide their

own cast skin as a food source to their offspring.  Boulengerula taitanus is a
direct-developing oviparous caecilian, the skin of which is transformed in
brooding females to provide a rich supply of nutrients for the developing
larvae, which are equipped with a specialized dentition, which they use to peel
and eat the outer layer of their mother’s modified skin.

Dermophis mexicanus is a Central American salamander, whose

embryos are 2 mm in diameter and feed on the egg yolk supply for only about
three months of gestation before the yolk supply is exhausted. After that the
mother produces a nutritious secretion from the internal oviductal glands.
Foetal caecilians move around within the oviduct and have specialized
dentition with which they scrape the oviduct skin in order to stimulate and
ingest the mother’s nutritive secretion. The dentition is shed at birth and a
different adult dentition is rapidly acquired within a few days. Foetuses also
have elaborate tri-branchiate gills for respiration (Wake 2003).

Viviparity is reported in Gegeneophis seshachari in which the oviducts

are highly vascularized and contain patches of thickened, layered tissues,
similar to foetal gut contents.  It resembles other viviparous caecilians in
having foetuses that ingest thickened oviduct lining using specialized
deciduous teeth.  Gegeneophis is the only caecilian genus known to include
oviparous and viviparous species, and G. seshachari is the smallest known
viviparous caecilian. Phylogenetic analysis of mitochondrial DNA sequences
supports the assignment of G. seshachari to a monophyletic
genus Gegeneophis.    

In general, it is hypothesized that maternal care should be found in

taxa with internal fertilization, and paternal care should be found in taxa with
external fertilization.

URODELA (=CAUDATA)

Hynobius retardatus is a slender, chocolate brown salamander having

length of 18 cm.  The distribution is limited to the Northern Japanese island
Hokkaido. Each female attaches an egg sac on the robust branches that run
horizontally touching the water surface. Sato (1990) reports that in nature the
egg sacs are mainly set off about 3 cm under the water surface. Each egg sac
contained between 44 & 102 eggs.

The Paghman mountain salamander (Paradactylodon mustersi) is entirely

water-dwelling and is restricted to three tributaries of the Paghman stream
drainage system in Afghanistan. The stream is fed by glaciers and this
species seems to prefer cold, fast-flowing water below 14°C. Fertilisation of
eggs in paired egg sacs is external, and these sacs are attached to the
underside of rocks and are guarded by the males.

The Gorgan mountain salamander (Paradactylodon gorganensis) is

restricted to a single cave and stream in the mountains of northern Iran. It
lives almost entirely in water, feeding on invertebrates and breeding in a long,
narrow pool within the Shir-Abad cave. During mating, the female produces
paired arc-shaped, gelatinous egg sacs, each containing 35-70 eggs. The
male grasps these and fertilises them externally.

Cryptobranchids are generally found living in depressions under stones

in streams and rivers. Andrias occurs in central China and Japan,
whereas Cryptobranchus lives in eastern North America, where mating
occurs in late summer or early fall. Males prepare nests below large,
submerged stones or logs. Females lay long, paired strings of several
hundred eggs which are fertilized externally by the male. Males guard the
eggs until they hatch in 2-3 months after egg-laying.

ANURA (=SALIENTIA)

Some frogs carry the eggs and tadpoles on their hind legs or back (e.g.
the midwife toads, Alytes spp.). Some frogs even protect their offspring inside
their own bodies. The male Australian Pouched Frog  (Assa darlingtoni) has
pouches along the side of body in which the tadpoles reside until
metamorphosis. The female Gastric-brooding Frogs,Rheobatrachus, from
Australia, swallow its tadpoles, which then develop in the stomach. To do this,
the Gastric-brooding Frog must stop secreting stomach acid and suppress
peristalsis. Darwin’s Frog (Rhinoderma darwinii) from Chile puts the
tadpoles in its vocal sac for development.   

The strawberry poison-dart frog (Oophaga pumilio) is a species of

poison dart frog found in Central America. Strawberry Poison Dart Frogs avoid
laying eggs in ponds and streams. Instead, the eggs develop on land until the
tadpoles are ready to hatch. Then the mother carries the tadpoles on her back
to water-filled bromeliads (epiphytic plants) on the trees. The tadpoles
complete their development in these tiny, predator-free pools, and the mother
feeds them with unfertilized eggs. The males defend and water the nests and
the females feed the oophagous tadpoles with their unfertilized eggs. O.
pumilio tadpoles are considered obligate egg feeders as they are unable to
accept any other form of nutrition. After mating, the female will lay an average
of three to five eggs on a leaf or bromeliad axil. The male will then ensure that
the eggs are kept hydrated by transporting water in his cloaca. After about ten
days, the eggs hatch and the female transports the tadpoles on her back to
some water body.

Care about the young reaches the highest degree in the case of two
species of Australian toads — Southern gastric-brooding
frog (Rheobatrachus silus) and Northern gastric-brooding
frog (Rheobatrachus vitellinus). These species are the only ones which
carry about 20 young in the stomach, during which they do not feed. The
female swallows the eggs after the male fertilizes them. Seven or eight weeks
afterward, fully formed froglets come out of the stomach to the mouth of the
mother, sit on its tongues, and jump out from it to the water. It was found that
tadpoles secrete special chemical substance — prostaglandin E2, which
suppresses secretion of the acid by the mother’s stomach.  

Jamaican endemic frogs exhibit some amount of parental care. All the
Eleutherodactyls have direct development from heavily yolked eggs to small
froglets, bypassing the tadpole stage, presumably as an adaptation to scarcity
of water. But Eleutherodactylus cundalli, which breeds in the Windsor Great
Cave, where the humidity is 100%, guards the egg clutch until the young
hatch as tiny froglets, which then climb onto the back of the mother to be
carried out of the cave.

Jamaica’s hylid frogs breed in the water-filled leaf-axils and have

adapted to the harsh environments of bromeliads (i.e., low oxygen levels and
limited food reserves), by producing rapidly developing eggs and by laying
further eggs which are eaten by the first-born larvae. Remarkably, the eggs
laid during the first few days are fertilised and later the unfertilized eggs are
laid, which the larvae consume rapidly.

  Mountain Chicken Frog (Leptodactylus fallax) is highly endangered

and limited to Dominica, St. Kits, Martinique and a few neighbouring islands,
lays eggs in foam nests underground, and the tadpoles develop without ever
seeing water. The startling footage taken by some researchers shows
tadpoles feeding on unfertilized eggs produced by their mother. Subsequent
research has revealed that the mother uses her rear legs to re-distribute the
unusual food, and perhaps to give all of her progeny a chance to feed and
survive.  The 25-50 tadpoles that she rears require 10,000 to 25,000
unfertilized eggs to see them through metamorphosis to adult stage.

There are some species of poisonous frogs in South America where

the males transport tadpoles. The males crouch down in the leaf litter next to
the hatching eggs and the tadpoles wriggle up onto the father’s back and he
transports them to water.  Mothers of the Jamaican cave frog
species—Eleutherodactylus cundalli—carry their froglets from the cave into
the rain forest. It is the only known example of females transporting froglets.

Dendrobates auratus female lays up to six eggs in a small pool of

water. The eggs are encased in a gelatinous substance for protection. The
mating season occurs throughout the rainy season, from mid-July to
mid-September.  During the two week development period, the male returns to
the eggs periodically to check on them. Once the tadpoles hatch, they climb
onto the males back and he carries them to a place suitable for further
development, such as a lake or a stream. For the duration of this trip, the
tadpoles are attached to the males back by a mucus secretion, which is
soluble only in water so that there is no chance of them accidentally falling off.
Once they are at their final destination, the tadpoles are on their own. They
take an additional six weeks to develop into adult frogs.  

Males of Rhinoderma darwinii, Darwin’s Frog, brood their developing

young in their vocal sacs until they metamorphose.  The Darwin’s frog males
have a very unusual behaviour in the amphibian community. After the male
and female mate, the female lays her eggs in moist leaf litter on the forest
floor. She then hops off, leaving the male to attend to them. Dutifully he
guards the eggs until a few days later when they begin to transform into tiny
tadpoles, but still encased in the egg sac. The movement inside the eggs
stimulates the father frog to swallow them into the modified vocal sac
calledgular pouch. There they remain until transformed into miniature adults,
upon which he opens his throat and allows them to leave and live on their
own.

The commonly named Moustache frog, Vibrissaphora

ailaonica undergoes quite a transformation just before the breeding season.
The males begin growing long, hair-like skin extensions from one end of their
mouth to the other. They also choose a large boulder near a stream and begin
building a nest underneath it. From here they will call incessantly for females,
and then guard the eggs of any and all females who come and mate with
them. The eggs typically take a month to hatch and tadpoles slip into the
waters below. Metamorphosis will not fully occur until two years later. The
microhylids,Anodenthyla, Platypelis and Plethodontohyla, which are all natives
of Madagascar, deposit their eggs in the rain filled axils of plants. Male frogs
then stay nearby the eggs for anywhere from 26 to 35 days; the time it takes
for the different species to hatch.

The genus Alytes contains the midwife toads, such

as A. cisternasii and A. obstetricans . Both species attach the fertilized eggs
to their hind legs. This starts by the male wrapping them first around his
ankles. Sometimes they mate up to four times, carrying up to 200 eggs upon
their bodies. The father frogs then keep the eggs moist by settling into shallow
puddles and pools, allowing the eggs to double in size. Midwife toads sense
when their eggs are ready to hatch, and will then wade into shallow waters to
allow the young tadpoles to escape into water.

Male Leptodactylid, Thoropa petropolitana also cares for the eggs in a

similar way. The microhylid malesBreviceps adspersus and Synapturanus
salseri also do the same.

DIRECT DEVELOPMENT

The frog genus Pristimantis lays eggs on land, which develop directly

into miniature adults with no tadpole stage. These are the most widespread
and commonly occurring frogs in the New World tropics. In Africa the
genus Arthroleptis, known as "squeakers", are all direct developers. There
are also many other direct developing frogs on Madagascar and in Southeast
Asia. Among salamanders most species of the largest family, the
Plethodontidae, are direct developers.

A few species of frogs give birth to living young. Members of the

African genus Nectophrynoides retain eggs in the oviduct and some nourish
the young as they grow. These are born as miniature adult. One Puerto Rican
species of the genus Eleutherodactylus, now thought to be extinct (E.
jasperi), also retained eggs in the oviduct to give live
births.Salamandra salamandra, S. atra and some related species either give
birth to larvae or to completely metamorphosed juveniles.