Prolonged parental behaviour by males of Limnonectes palavanensis (Boulenger 1894), a frog with possible sex-role reversal

ABSTRACT

In sex-role-reversed systems, males carry out all parental care duties, forgoing further mating opportunities. Cases of complete sex-role reversal have not been reported in anurans. We describe the parental care behaviour of the leaf-litter frog Limnonectes palavanensis, a Bornean endemic with egg-guarding and tadpole transport, possibly the first anuran with sex-role reversal. In this study, we tested one of the predictions of the sex-role reversal hypothesis: males invest more in parental care than females do, and this prevents them from quickly acquiring additional mates. We observed egg-guarding behaviour in captivity to determine the length and intensity of parental care. Also, we describe the tadpole climbing and tadpole transport behaviour. We found that males perform all of the parental duties, remaining with the clutch until hatching. They do not call during this time, nor do they care for more than one clutch at a time. Observations of tadpole transport in the field indicate that all tadpoles in the clutch are retrieved at once. The behaviour of males during tadpole retrieval suggests that they stimulate synchronous hatching. Together, these results indicate that the male parental expenditure in this species is high, resulting in lost mating opportunities. The prolonged male-only parental care behaviour of this species satisfies an important criterion for the occurrence of sex-role reversal.