![]() “It changes a lot about how they look and the kind of microbes that they have.” “Basically, it’s a way to seed their tadpoles with a microbiome,” O’Connell says. The skin-to-skin contact with dad during the piggyback ride also transfers important microbes to the tadpole. “They have a very small water pool, not a lot of resources, and they will defend this area to the death.” “They’re highly aggressive,” says Lauren O’Connell, a biologist and Goolsby’s Ph.D. ![]() He’ll search for just the right spot, often depositing them at the heart of leafy bromeliads, where tightly overlapping leaves - think of a pineapple - collect and pool rainwater.ĭad has to ensure that his babies are separated, because these tadpoles are cannibals. Once they hatch, he squats next to each tadpole as it squirms up his leg and onto his back, taking each one on a piggyback ride to their own tiny puddle of water. Dad fertilizes them and watches over them as they develop. It all starts when Mom lays eggs on the forest floor. These devoted frogs might just offer us lessons about successful parenting that we can apply to our own families. Goolsby studies the mimic poison frogs to understand how parents communicate with their offspring, as well as how parents work together as a team to care for their young. One species, known as the mimic poison frog (Ranitomeya imitator), is the only known example of monogamy in amphibians, and Mom and Dad raise the tadpoles together. ![]() Poison frog dads often take the lead on raising their young, says Kyle Summers, an ecologist at East Carolina University. “When tadpoles get older, they move inside, kind of like a baby moves in a belly,” says Billie Goolsby, a Ph.D. This poison frog father has been guarding his eggs for weeks as they develop, waiting for the tadpoles to emerge. Using his delicate sense of touch, he’s feeling for the embryos inside. Deep in the Peruvian rainforest, a brilliantly colored frog lays one hand gently on top of a small clump of gelatinous eggs. ![]()
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