November 17, 2008
frog embryos detect predators
Frog embryos can learn to identify predators while still in the egg.
After hatching, many amphibians and fish learn to recognize a predator by associating its odor with an alarm pheromone released by injured conspecifics. Mathis’ team wondered whether frogs might have that cognitive capacity even earlier, as embryos.
For three hours a day, on six consecutive days, the team exposed wood-frog eggs to water from a bucket containing crushed tadpoles mixed with water from a bucket housing fire-belly newts. (The newts, native to Asia, are unfamiliar to wood frogs, but eat tadpoles of other species.) A control group received newt water alone.
Two weeks after hatching, only the tadpoles that had experienced the combo of crushed-tadpole and newt water reacted when newt water was presented by itself: they stopped moving, a typical anti-predator response.
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Neo-Lamarkism?