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9 December 2022 Kin cannibals: recently hatched Philoria pughi tadpoles consume unhatched siblings in isolated terrestrial nests
John Gould, Stephen V. Mahony, Michael Mahony
Author Affiliations +
Abstract

Cannibalism is a behaviour exhibited across amphibian life history stages; however, there are few records that involve cannibalism between siblings. Here, we describe observations of recently hatched tadpoles of the frog Philoria pughi consuming sibling embryos with delayed or failed development. Our observations indicate that additional nutrition is obtained from the ingested embryos, despite tadpoles of species of Philoria being capable of endotrophic development. This discovery should be considered when establishing captive breeding colonies for Philoria species and needs further investigation in wild populations.

© 2023 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing.
John Gould, Stephen V. Mahony, and Michael Mahony "Kin cannibals: recently hatched Philoria pughi tadpoles consume unhatched siblings in isolated terrestrial nests," Australian Journal of Zoology 70(3), 83-86, (9 December 2022). https://doi.org/10.1071/ZO22038
Received: 12 August 2022; Accepted: 1 November 2022; Published: 9 December 2022
KEYWORDS
Anura
asynchronous development
behaviour
captive management
diet
predation
siblicide
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