• The observations of the bush frogs’ parental care and novel records of cannibalism, published on December 14 in Behavioural Ecology and Sociobiology (a journal dedicated to animal behaviour), add details to a breeding pattern that scientists first recorded in 2014: that of the white-spotted bush frog Raorchestes chalazodes (rediscovered in 2011 after 125 years and found only in the Western Ghats’ Agastya Hills in Kerala and Tamil Nadu) breeding inside hollow bamboo stems.
• Inserting an endoscope into these bamboo stems, herpetologist Seshadri K.S., who is with the National University of Singapore, observed the breeding behaviour of the critically endangered bush frogs in Tamil Nadu’s Kalakkad Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve for his recent work.
• This is the first known instance of cannibalism among tree frogs of the Rhacophoridae family.

Source:TH