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Salientia Sensory Systems

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Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior
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Introduction

Salientia, the group of amphibians that includes frogs and toads, is a widely diverse clade, with more than 5,450 species documented. Frogs and toads can be found in most freshwater and terrestrial habitats, and on all continents, with the exception of Antarctica. Their highest diversity is in the New World tropics, with approximately half of known species inhabiting this environment (Vitt and Caldwell 2009).

Members of Salientia undergo dramatic metamorphosis from larva to adult life stages. The fully aquatic larva is physiologically, ecologically, and behaviorally unique from, mostly terrestrial, juveniles and adults. As such, frogs and toads require a variety of mechanisms for sensing both terrestrial and aquatic environments. The most prevalent sensory systems of Salientia include: (1) cutaneous sense organs for mechanoreception, (2) auditory sense organs, (3) well-developed eyes, (4) chemoreception through olfaction and taste, and (5) internal sense organs for...

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Correspondence to Carly A. York .

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© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

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York, C.A. (2019). Salientia Sensory Systems. In: Vonk, J., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_1321-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_1321-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-47829-6

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