quacking frog

The quacking frog (Crinia georgiana), also known as the red-thighed froglet due to its legs tending to be bright red, is a species of frog from the Myobatrachidae family and is in a clad with five other species. The frog is well known for the sound it produces which resembles a quack. It has up to 11 notes and can change the notes in their call. It has larger testes compared to other frogs within the genus and has started to be used in experiments. This frog is found in southwest Australia. It is found in ponds, pools, and other moisture filled areas. These frogs engage in polyandry and can result in multiple paternity of its offspring. Additionally, the tadpoles of this species can change the rate they metamorphosize depending on the conditions. The males tend to have larger arm girth and can adopt different mating strategies depending on size. The mating strategy is dependent on male density. The frogs also vary in terms of colour and texture of its skin. The tadpoles are generally golden with transparent tails.

The quacking frog (Crinia georgiana), also known as the red-thighed froglet due to its legs tending to be bright red, is a species of frog from the Myobatrachidae family and is in a clad with five other species. The frog is well known for the sound it produces which resembles a quack. It has up to 11 notes and can change the notes in their call. It has larger testes compared to other frogs within the genus and has started to be used in experiments. This frog is found in southwest Australia. It is found in ponds, pools, and other moisture filled areas. These frogs engage in polyandry and can result in multiple paternity of its offspring. Additionally, the tadpoles of this species can change the rate they metamorphosize depending on the conditions. The males tend to have larger arm girth and can adopt different mating strategies depending on size. The mating strategy is dependent on male density. The frogs also vary in terms of colour and texture of its skin. The tadpoles are generally golden with transparent tails. ==Mating== ===Male-male interaction=== Call matching is present within the species of the quacking frog. Call matching is said to be competitive and is presented as the producing and matching the number and complexity of call(s) between male neighbours. In cases where there are multiple calls that occur, if the time between two consecutive calls is greater than 1.5s apart then the responding male will only respond to the first stimulus and will ignore the second stimulus. Some scientists theorize that the quacking frog has a leader follower relationship due to the presence of long intervals between short advertisement calls and the fact that males usually never interrupt neighbouring male calls. Also, males have never been recorded to produce calls that were distinctively aggressive. A hypothesis that some in the field have is that call matching is a way in which calls are somewhat attractive or equivalent to the neighbouring males but with minimizing energetic cost. In the male quacking frog, there seems to be an interaction between the size and origin of the population that contributes to variation in the sperm characteristics; this variation indicates that certain males that have specific sperm characteristics within the population use different reproductive strategies. Quacking frogs interact with each other for territory using their arms to wrestle. They specifically fight over breeding territory, and the one with the bigger arms tends to win control over the breeding site. Additionally, the males that are larger tend to do the calling, whereas the smaller males usually act as satellites and do not call to conserve energy, resulting in a different reproductive strategy compared to the larger males of the species. Additionally, the mating success associated with arm girth was density dependent. Males with thicker arms in a low male density environment experienced increased mating, specifically amplexing, which could be attributed to wrestling silent males out of the territory and females being able to mate with males with thicker arms without being intercepted by silent males. However, when male density increases, males with larger arms must compete with more silent males, which results in increased instances of multimale amplexus. Male size and male arm girth and independent of each other, as male size influences whether a male calls or is silent, whereas the arm girth does not regulate whether a male uses the tactic of calling or being silent nor does it affect whether the male engages in singular or multimale amplexus. Thus, male density is positively associated with multimale amplexus and sperm competition and male density is negatively associated with the advantage of arm strength for mating. This would indicate that there would be increased investment in testes mass and sperm production, which is supported by the density of males in choruses. Since a female can mate with multiple males, the sperm from different males must compete for fertilization of the ova, meaning that there is continued competition post copulation. ===Hibernation=== Quacking frogs hibernate during summer and autumn. They use rocks and logs for cover when they are hibernating. ===Tadpole survival=== It has been determined that although tadpoles with limited foodstuff (i.e., a smaller egg) have a higher rate of mortality, those that do survive can still complete metamorphosis at the same rate as those that have plentiful food. In addition, if water levels drop, tadpoles can speed up development so as not to remain in such a fragile state while water, a critical resource, is limited. This indicates that the quacking frog has developed adaptations that allow for its survival in the dry climate of Western Australia.

Text derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1374196913 under CC BY-SA 4.0; modifications have been made.