# Do Grannies guard their eggs?



## phender (Jan 9, 2009)

I know that pumilio don't seem to guard their eggs, but one of my granulifera -golfitos (I can't tell if it is the male or the female) has set up camp on a magnolia leaf in a forked branch. There is overhanging vegetation, so I can't see the part of the leaf where the frog is sitting even when it is not there.

I'm sure its just wishful thinking that granulifera would be different than pumilio and guard their eggs, but I just thought I would ask.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

phender said:


> I know that pumilio don't seem to guard their eggs, but one of my granulifera -golfitos (I can't tell if it is the male or the female) has set up camp on a magnolia leaf in a forked branch. There is overhanging vegetation, so I can't see the part of the leaf where the frog is sitting even when it is not there.
> 
> I'm sure its just wishful thinking that granulifera would be different than pumilio and guard their eggs, but I just thought I would ask.


I'm not sure why you think pumilio don't guard their eggs as its well documented that they do ... Its one of the characteristics of the dendrobatids. 

see Stynoski, Jennifer L. "Behavioral ecology of parental care in a dendrobatid frog (Oophaga pumilio)." (2012)..

http://scholarlyrepository.miami.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1733&context=oa_dissertations

Interestingly enough the egg guarding is actually very energetically expensive for the males resulting in a shift in the operating sex ratio see 

Pröhl, Heike. "Clutch loss affects the operational sex ratio in the strawberry poison frog Dendrobates pumilio." Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 58.3 (2005): 310-315.

some comments 

Ed


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## phender (Jan 9, 2009)

Well I guess I just have never noticed my males guarding their eggs. Of course mine don't lay their eggs out in the open very often like some people's seem to, so it would be hard to tell.
I guess there is hope for my granulifera after all. 

Thanks Ed.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

There are a number of aberrant behaviors that show up in pumilio due to how they are managed. For example, female pumilio in the wild do not produce eggs for fertilization during the period of feeding the tadpoles. [This sort of issue should be considered a red flag that something isn't right with the husbandry. ]

Since it is commonly reported on this forum and elsewhere that the females produce not only large clutches but clutches during egg feeding periods, it is possible that the male is being overwhelmed but I doubt that is the case as people would report more clutches drying out as it is the male and not the female that waters them .... 

As I noted above the large deviations from the normal behaviors in the wild should be considered to be a problem ... 

some comments 

Ed


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## oldlady25715 (Nov 17, 2007)

All good points, but in captivity couldn't the male be anywhere in the tank and still be guarding or keeping any eye on the clutch? I mean he can't sit next to eggs all the time because he has to hunt and eat. 

Also, males guard their territory so I'm not sure how that behavior would differ from guarding a clutch in their territory. My grannie Osa male often sits in the open and calls, and this area is near both where eggs are laid and the brom where the tads are raised. Figured it was just chest thumping territory guarding because the behavior doesn't seem to noticeably change between having the eggs to raising tads. But I work full time so could be missing subtle differences.

I've had some pumilio keep laying eggs in quarantine tanks even after transporting and while feeding tads in a water dish. I considered it could be because it was a1:2 group so the male was working double-time. But when I put them in their permanent tank I've only seen courting but no clutches yet. It was a big shift in behavior.


I downloaded that dissertation, but didn't Read it yet, sorry. Thanks Ed.


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## austin (Dec 6, 2013)

Could the excess breeding be due to the animals being "trapped" in such a close proximity to one another? Is that a mechanism they are using or taking advantage of in order to try and increase their population size or keep up production in the event of an unforeseen incident, say losing the first tads due to a predation or destruction of the tadpole deposition site?

Just wondering.

I have a pair of pumilio who are raising two different clutches right now. At least I think they are still caring for the first batch. Can they tell if the offspring of one clutch are deformed or diseased and if so do they select to invest their care in a new clutch?


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

austin said:


> Could the excess breeding be due to the animals being "trapped" in such a close proximity to one another? Is that a mechanism they are using or taking advantage of in order to try and increase their population size or keep up production in the event of an unforeseen incident, say losing the first tads due to a predation or destruction of the tadpole deposition site?


One of the primary drivers of egg production is whether or not the animal has sufficient reserves to provision the yolks of the eggs consequently the animal tends to breed more frequently and produce a greater number of eggs. Environment is the other big driver of reproduction in these animals, its not the proximity of the two sexes together (as they tend to be found together in the wild) but the two husbandry practices that drive this process. There is currently no evidence for it as a compensation due to predation (if it was then why would the males guard the eggs as it would make energetically more sense to not care for the eggs for the male and to just continue to solicit females) mechanism and the current data actually points away from that idea. 

In captivity there is a trend among hobbyists to encourage reproduction year round and to overfeed the frogs. This is what is enabling the frogs to breed this often and quickly. 

I should also note that deposition of clutches out in the open should also be considered an aberrant behavior it is indicating that none of the other deposition sites are acceptable. The clutches should be deposited somewhere where they are hidden in one way or another. 



austin said:


> I have a pair of pumilio who are raising two different clutches right now. At least I think they are still caring for the first batch. Can they tell if the offspring of one clutch are deformed or diseased and if so do they select to invest their care in a new clutch?


Unknown to my knowledge but I would doubt it. To invest in a new clutch there would have to be sufficient fat reserves to enable a new clutch to be developed and in the natural populations this doesn't happen until there are no demands on the female. As long as the tadpole begs, she will feed it, if it doesn't beg then she moves onto the next tadpole. 

So rearing two clutches at the same time is not a normal behavior either. 

some comments 

Ed


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

oldlady25715 said:


> All good points, but in captivity couldn't the male be anywhere in the tank and still be guarding or keeping any eye on the clutch? I mean he can't sit next to eggs all the time because he has to hunt and eat.


There are activity periods in the wild where they hunt for prey but keep in mind that in the enclosures a good bit of prey is still going to come to them reducing any need to forage (and if overfed regularly again a reduction in the need to forage). 



oldlady25715 said:


> Also, males guard their territory so I'm not sure how that behavior would differ from guarding a clutch in their territory.


Males in at least some of the studied populations do not guard their territories against juveniles, females and non-calling males (none of these are a threat). People forget that one of the main components of the nest guarding by the males is that they moisten the eggs to ensure that they do not dry out. If a male was not guarding the eggs then we should expect to see a high number of nest failures. 



oldlady25715 said:


> My grannie Osa male often sits in the open and calls, and this area is near both where eggs are laid and the brom where the tads are raised. Figured it was just chest thumping territory guarding because the behavior doesn't seem to noticeably change between having the eggs to raising tads. But I work full time so could be missing subtle differences.


Point of note, the males do not guard the egg deposition sites, the females do ... the fact that he is near it is an artifact of captivity. Deposition sites in dendrobatids can be hundreds of feet away from the site where the clutch was deposited (which is why it is important for the female to move the tadpoles as she will only feed the ones she deposits so any that end up on males are very likely to starve to death). 

Keep in mind that calling serves two purposes, the first is that it is a territorial advertisement and the second is that it is a advertisement of fitness to mate. If the male can see the female he is going to be induced to call which can result in calling all day long which again is an artifact of the enclosure size. In the wild the calling site (in pumilio I haven't dug into granulifera for this data to check my facts) isn't occupied all day long but the territory is occupied. Some populations such as Solarte in dense populations are as small as 2 square meters (see Pröhl H, Ostrowski T. 2011. Behavioural elements reflect phenotypic colour divergence in a poison frog. Evol Ecol. 25:993–1015.). 




oldlady25715 said:


> I've had some pumilio keep laying eggs in quarantine tanks even after transporting and while feeding tads in a water dish. I considered it could be because it was a1:2 group so the male was working double-time. But when I put them in their permanent tank I've only seen courting but no clutches yet. It was a big shift in behavior.


This could easily be due to the disruption of the move to a new territory. Pumilio show strong site fidelity and have been demonstrated to be able to return to their home territory (and to locate a specific bromeliad) via olfaction so they may have simply not accepted the new territory as of yet. 




oldlady25715 said:


> I downloaded that dissertation, but didn't Read it yet, sorry. Thanks Ed.


Not a problem,

Ed


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## austin (Dec 6, 2013)

Just so I am clear, these deviations from wild behavior are not being presented as a a necessarily bad or harmful thing, just not natural, or are they? Not looking to make this a philosophical debate of any kind.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

austin said:


> Just so I am clear, these deviations from wild behavior are not being presented as a a necessarily bad or harmful thing, just not natural, or are they? Not looking to make this a philosophical debate of any kind.


To some extent any aberrant behavior should be considered to be a potential problem as it is signaling that something is not right. One of the issues that should be taken seriously is that these aberrations can then be included as "normal" behaviors by hobbyists and then ignored. This was common in institutional collections back in the day (stereotypical/stereotypy behaviors for example weren't recognized as signs of problems for many years) meaning that the impact of stress and boredom wasn't recognized until relatively recently. 

some comments 

Ed


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## austin (Dec 6, 2013)

So what would be some potential solutions for these issues with our animals?


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## daryl34 (Feb 24, 2007)

never seen that, I keep a pair to a 55 gallon tank. So they have room to get away from each other


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

austin said:


> So what would be some potential solutions for these issues with our animals?


Experiment ... Feed less ... use leaf litter that holds moisture better (such as magnolia leaves mixed in with other leaves) to name a couple of options. This is where the cookbook methods are causing issues with advancing understanding of the optimal ways to keep the frogs. 

some comments 

Ed


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## austin (Dec 6, 2013)

Ed said:


> Experiment ... Feed less ... use leaf litter that holds moisture better (such as magnolia leaves mixed in with other leaves) to name a couple of options. This is where the cookbook methods are causing issues with advancing understanding of the optimal ways to keep the frogs.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Great, will do!


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