Abstract
Acoustic communication is an important behavior in frog courtship. Male and female frogs of most species, except the concave-eared torrent frog Odorrana tormota, have largely similar audiograms. The large odorous frogs (Odorrana graminea) are sympatric with O. tormota, but have no ear canals. The difference in hearing between two sexes of the frog is unknown. We recorded auditory evoked near-field potentials and single-unit responses from the auditory midbrain (the torus semicircularis) to determine auditory frequency sensitivity and threshold. The results show that males have the upper frequency limit at 24 kHz and females have the upper limit at 16 kHz. The more sensitive frequency range is 3–15 kHz for males and 1–8 kHz for females. Males have the minimum threshold at 11 kHz (58 dB SPL), higher about 5 dB than that at 3 kHz for females. The best excitatory frequencies of single units are mostly between 3 and 5 kHz in females and at 7–8 kHz in males. The underlying mechanism of auditory sexual differences is discussed.
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Abbreviations
- AENFP:
-
Auditory evoked near-field potential
- BEF:
-
Best excitatory frequency
- CF:
-
Characteristic frequency
- RMS:
-
Root mean square
- SPL:
-
Sound pressure level
- TS:
-
Torus semicircularis
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 30730029 to J.X.S.; Nos. 31070741 and 31270891 to Z.Q.). All experiments were conducted following the Animal Care and Use Guidelines approved by the Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
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Liu, WR., Shen, JX., Zhang, YJ. et al. Auditory sexual difference in the large odorous frog Odorrana graminea . J Comp Physiol A 200, 311–316 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-014-0885-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-014-0885-3