Table 1.
Visual displays of Hylodes japi during intraspecific communication (modified from [2, 21]).
Fig 1.
New visual displays performed by male Hylodes japi.
(A) Toes posture; from resting position (above; frontal view) raising feet and holding feet up for some seconds, exposing dorsal surfaces of toes (below; frontal view). (B) Two-armed impulse; from resting position (above; lateral view) boosting the whole body forward by impulsion via an up and down movement with both arms simultaneously, moving the body forward and raising the anterior part of the body. (C) Head bobbing; from resting position (above; lateral view) performing a single down or up jerky movement with the head without lifting either hands or feet off the ground nor moving the body; it is performed preceding calls by males. (D) Head snaking; rapidly approaching a conspecific female, raising the head up (above; lateral view of the couple) moving it to alternate sides eight times (four times each side), in a snakelike motion (below; dorsal view of the male); it is performed with the throat at the level and in front of the female snout, with the frogs being very close to each other, but without touching. (E) Truncated walking (dorsal view); lowering the body and walking ahead slowly, with alternation of legs and arms; it is performed with a moving and stopping pattern; left arm is moved concomitantly with right leg and vice-versa.
Fig 2.
(A) Spectrogram (top) and waveform (bottom) of a peep call composed of three notes. (B) Spectrogram (top) and waveform (bottom) of a squeal call. (C) Spectrogram (top) and waveform (bottom) of a courtship call composed of five notes. Peep and squeal calls recorded on 15 April 2011 and courtship call on 6 March 2012. For all calls, air temperature was 24°C and water temperature 19.5°C.
Fig 3.
Frequency of visual and acoustic signals performed by Hylodes japi males in distinct contexts.
We observed males in advertisement (N = 28 males observed), long-range agonistic (N = 10 males), short-range agonistic (N = 24 males), and courtship contexts (N = 3 males). Values on top of each bar are the number of observations.
Fig 4.
Frequency of advertisement, peep, squeal, and courtship calls of Hylodes japi in distinct contexts.
We observed males in advertisement (N = 28 males observed), long-range agonistic (N = 10 males), short-range agonistic (N = 24 males), and courtship contexts (N = 3 males). Values on top of each bar are the number of observations.
Table 2.
Percentage of visual displays performed by Hylodes japi males in each behavioral context.
Fig 5.
Mating couple of Hylodes japi during courtship.
Hylodes japi female touching the dorsum of the conspecific male with her gular region during courtship (drawn based on images captured by video recording). Male is calling only with one vocal sac inflated, the one closest to the female (left vocal sac), also showing the visual component of his bright whitish vocal sacs. Note the female’s left arm is closer to the male’s head and the female’s right arm is closer to his posterior body region.
Fig 6.
Male courtship calls triggered by distinct female stimulus.
Percentages of courtship calls emitted by the male when the female performs bimodal signals (visual plus tactile communication) and pure tactile signals, in Hylodes japi. See text for details. Values on top of each bar are the number of observations.
Fig 7.
Resident male of Hylodes japi chooses left or right limb/vocal sac to visually signal.
In the short-range agonistic context, we recorded behaviors from resident males (N = 24) in three distinct situations. We observed behaviors when an intruder male is at the left side of the resident male (N = 9 males and 164 communication signals recorded), in front of the resident male (N = 10 males and 95 communication signals recorded), and at the right side of the resident male (N = 5 males and 23 communication signals recorded). Values on top of each bar are the number of observations.
Table 3.
Diversity of intraspecific visual communication in Neotropical torrent frogs (Anura, Hylodidae).