Extraordinary 'faithful father' revealed by study of smooth guardian frog of Borneo

December 18, 2018 by Brendan M. Lynch, University of Kansas

Stay-at-home dads might find their spirit animal in the smooth guardian frog of Borneo. A new pair of research papers authored by an investigator at the University of Kansas shows the male of the smooth guardian frog species (Limnonectes palavanensis) is a kind of amphibian "Mr. Mom"—an exemplar of male parental care in the animal kingdom.

"Sex-role reversal is basically when a male takes the role that you usually see with females in other species," said Johana Goyes Vallejos, a postdoctoral research associate with the Herpetology Division at KU's Biodiversity Institute, who led both studies. "The male provides care for the offspring. The females do the displaying part—like a peacock that has beautiful feathers—the female has those ornaments or behaviors you usually see with males."

The papers reflect three years' worth of fieldwork in Borneo, a vast island in the southwestern Pacific Ocean split among the nations of Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia. Goyes Vallejos observed the frogs both in the wild and in outdoor enclosures at a field station.

In one of the papers, published in the Journal of Natural History, Goyes Vallejos offers new details about the prolonged parental duties of the male smooth guardian frog, behavior that had been studied very little until now. "In frogs, male parenting is more common," said Goyes Vallejos. "But in other frog species, males take care of eggs and offspring, but they continue to call to attract other females—they aren't missing opportunities to mate with females just because they have a clutch of eggs. So, sometimes they have two or three clutches of eggs from different females. But in the case of the smooth guardian frog, they only take care of one clutch and they don't call at that time—they aren't interested in attracting other females; they're very faithful fathers. That's unusual. Clearly, other frog species can do it, so why don't they? There's some reversal in the sex roles where the father becomes a very devoted parent while the female can go on to mate multiple times."

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