Eliot Evans

Date of Award

2022

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Natural Sciences

First Advisor

Leininger, Elizabeth

Area of Concentration

Biopsychology

Abstract

Anurans of the genus Xenopus provide us with an excellent model to study vocalization physiology and behavior. These frogs produce species and sex-specific vocalizations depending on their current social context. In this study, I look at the understudied species Xenopus muelleri in an attempt to elicit undiscovered vocalizations in this species as well as provide novel behavioral descriptions for each of their known vocalizations. To accomplish this, I primed male and female frogs with human chorionic gonadotropin to increase the likelihood of mating behaviors then paired males and females together both with and without a separation barrier. Temporal and behavioral characteristics were described for each of their vocalizations. Four types of calls were characterized in this study: the advertisement call, approach call, the approach ending to an advertisement call, and the female release call. Based on the behaviors that were observed, I confirm that a call that was speculated to be the Xenopus muelleri approach call is likely the approach call, though I find evidence that it may be the X. muelleri amplectic call which has never been described before. I conclude that future studies on X. muelleri are necessary to distinguish these two calls and corroborate my findings.

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