Acoustically mediated neighbor recognition in the North American bullfrog, Rana catesbeiana

Summary

Playback experiments were conducted to determine whether territorial male bullfrogs (Rana catesbeiana) were capable of discriminating between advertisement calls of neighbors and strangers. Territorial males adjacent to subject males were removed and replaced with a speaker which broadcast calls of a stranger or the removed male. Ten of 11 males responded more strongly to calls of strangers than to calls of neighbors. When advertisement calls of neighbors were broadcast to subject males from positions within the removed neighbor's territory and from positions opposite the subject male, all 9 males tested responded more strongly to calls of a neighbor broadcast from a new position than to playbacks of the same call broadcast within the removed neighbor's territory. Because male bullfrogs recognize familiar calls and associate these calls with a particular direction or location, these data provide the first evidence for acoustically mediated neighbor recognition in frogs.