Adaptations for Life in Tree Holes by Rhacophorid Tadpoles from Thailand

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of Herpetology.ABSTRACT-Larvae of two species of rhacophorids are reported from tree holes in Thailand. One, referred to Theloderma stellatum, has a body nearly as wide as long and a denticle formula of 1:3+3/1+1:11. Internally, it has large branchial baskets with many rows of dense gill filters, but only two filter cavities. It has secretory cells in its branchial food traps, but they are not arranged in ridges. Its buccal musculature is slight. The larva of the second species, referred to Philautus (cf. carinensis) has a truncated snout, anteriorly directed mouth, denticle formula I/O, and unusually shaped beaks with the upper portion concave but serrations confined to the lower. It has huge buccal musculature. In this form all branchial structures associated with suspension feeding, and respiratory gill filaments, are absent.Both larvae have large, anteriorly placed glotta, which are evidently adaptations for aerial respiration. The Theloderma has a peculiar mosaic of feeding structures associated with dietary extremes of microphagy and macrophagy. Its gut contents consist of both large and small food items. The Philautus larva has features of an obligate macrophagous larva. From its gut contents it appears to eat only frog eggs.Certain arboreal tadpoles for the New World tropics, e.g., Hyla zetecki and others, resemble these Philautus tadpoles in form and diet. No analog of larval Theloderma stellatum is yet known from the American tropics.

Tadpole deposition behaviour in male stream frogsMannophryne trinitatis(Anura: Dendrobatidae)

“…This is supported by other studies where deposition of tadpoles in small nutrient-deficient pools in the wild is followed by the female supplying unfertilised eggs on a regular basis for tadpole consumption (Wassersug et al 1981;Weygoldt 1987;Crump 1996;Jungler 1996). Out of the 30 depositions at Mount Saint Benedict, only one container had more than seven tadpoles (N511, tub 36).…”

A Biogeographic Synthesis of the Amphibians and Reptiles of Indochina

“…Ecological studies of herpetofaunas in Mainland Southeast Asia are largely limited to tadpole community analyses in Thailand (Heyer, 1971(Heyer, , 1973(Heyer, , 1974Wassersug et al, 1981), accounts of stomach contents from adult amphibians and reptiles from Vietnam (Kuzmin and Tarkhshnivili, 1997;Ziegler and Weitkus, 1999a, b;, and some disparate studies or observations for individual species (e.g., Pope, 1935;Taylor, 1962;Dring, 1979;. This is problematic because, in addition to the sampling limitations outlined above, species may only be encountered when they are out of the water, aboveground, or down from the trees, and this observational bias may hide their essential ecology.…”

The Ecology of Male Egg Attendance in an Arboreal Breeding Frog, Chirixalus eiffingeri (Anura: Rhacophoridae), from Taiwan

“…Typically, these small water bodies receive only rain water, and water levels often fluctuate greatly depending upon the balance between evaporation and rainfall (Lin and Kam, 2008). In addition, while many arboreal pools are predator-free, they are also often food-limited (Laessle, 1961;Wassersug et al, 1981). In such conditions, competition for food is severe, and priority effects are obvious within and between species (Caldwell, 1993, Chen et al, 2001Kam et al, 2001).…”