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Faster than Gene Kelly tap-dancing in the rain, many species of poison dart frogs tap their metatarsal toes with their hind legs so quickly that they appear blurry.
Recently, three labs in each country began their own efforts to find out why. Both of their studies suggest that the presence of prey influences the frogs’ toe-tapping, but the purpose of the fancy footwork remains a mystery. Dozens of species of frogs and toads make some type of toe or foot movement while hunting, so this study could help explain similar behavior in other frogs and toads.
The latest study, published online last month but not yet published in a peer-reviewed journal, is by biologists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Researchers observed colorfully dyed poison dart frogs tap up to 500 times per minute, or more than three times faster than Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off.”
When the frog found a fruit fly in the petri dish but couldn’t reach it, it tapped less frequently. This suggests that tapping may be related to the ability to capture prey.
However, the researchers also found that toe tapping had no relation to the frog’s ability to catch prey. This “kind of confused us, and that’s what we’re still thinking about,” said Thomas Parrish, who worked on the study as an undergraduate with biology professor Eva Fisher.
Although some mysteries remained, it became clear that the amphibian dance floor was important. Dr. Fisher’s team found that frogs tapped their toes the most when they were perched on leaves in their aquariums compared to when they were placed on agar gel, soil, or glass. did.
Because leaves are good at transmitting vibrations, this finding supports the idea that frogs may beat their prey to move them around and help them find tasty insects. (These frogs only click their tongues at live, moving insects.)
Another hypothesis considered by many scientists is that, similar to how turtles stick out their tongues to imitate insects, or how deep-sea anglerfish use shiny fishing-rod-like protrusions to attract prey, they use their toes to attract prey. The vibrations caused by the tapping could bring prey closer. But while Gulf toads have been observed vibrating their toes to move prey towards them, this has not been seen in poison dart frogs.
Another team of biologists set out to investigate the vibrations produced by tapping your toes. They used accelerometers to record the beating of a yellow-striped poison dart frog in a specially constructed aquarium.
“It looks very Caribbean here, so you imagine frogs playing drums,” said study author Luis Alberto Rueda Solano from Colombia’s Magdalena University. The study, published last November in the journal Evolutionary Ecology and led by Natalia Vergara-Herrera, found that in about 37 percent of records, frogs tip their toes before flicking their tongues to attack prey. It turned out that the tapping motion was accelerated. Frogs with longer metatarsal toes were more likely to exhibit this acceleration.
Magdalena researchers ultimately hope to study whether frogs sense the movements of prey and other creatures through vibrations transmitted from their hind legs to their inner ears.
“This is a potentially very interesting example of a predator using sensory cues to manipulate the behavior of its prey. At least it’s possible. There is a gender,” he said.
Does the size of a frog’s meal matter? In another study published in early 2023, Lisa Schulte and Janis Köning of Goethe University Frankfurt in Germany conducted experiments with green and black poison dart frogs at the Frankfurt Zoo and found that both crickets and small fruit flies showed that it had undergone amphibian tataki.
However, other frog calls do not trigger toe tapping, Schulte said, suggesting the behavior is not just a common expression of excitement.
Dr. Schulte noted complementary results from each group’s studies that point to a relationship between toe tapping and feeding in poison dart frogs.
All three groups will follow up on the findings and advance science towards finding out whether toe-tapping helps these frogs eat their dinner, or if it’s just for stimulation. are planning.
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