Figure 1.
Comparison of natural and experimental mating behavior.
(A) Female natural mating behavior: the female follows the tail-waving male, touches the male's tail to stimulate spermatophore deposition, and uses tail-waving to encourage a male to continue courtship (see Materials and methods). (B) Equivalent female behavior in a two-female experiment: after addition of male courtship water, one female follows the other one, or both females try to follow each other; the following female regularly touches the tail of the other one; a female uses tail-waving in trying to encourage the other female.
Figure 2.
Results of intra-specific and inter-specific two-female experiments.
The experiments show that the pheromones are species-specific and extremely potent. The focal species in the experiment is indicated on top. The mean cumulative duration of the behaviour in seconds (+/− S.E.) is indicated on the y-axis. Abbreviation for stimuli (indicated on x-axis): Ia, alpine newt male courtship water; Lh, palmate newt male courtship water; W, control water.
Table 1.
Results of the statistical tests.