Colors and Some Morphological Traits as Defensive Mechanisms in Anurans
By L. F. Toledo, Célio Fernando Baptista Haddad. 2009
116 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Anurans may be brightly colored or completely cryptic. Generally, in the former situation, we are dealing with aposematism, and the latter is an example of camouflage. However, these are only simple views of what such colorations really mean and which defensive strategy is implied. For instance, a brightly colored frog may be part of a mimicry ring, which could be either Batesian, Mullerian, or Browerian. These are only examples of the diversity of color-usage systems as defensive strategies. Unfortunately, reports on the use of colors as defensive mechanisms are widespread in the available literature, and the possible functions are rarely mentioned. Therefore, we reviewed the literature and added new data to this subject. Then, we the use of colors (as defensive mechanism) into categories. Mimicry was divided into the subcategories camouflage, homotypy, and nondeceitful homotypy, and these groups were also subcategorized. Dissuasive coloration was divided into behavioral display of colors, polymorphism, and polyphenism. Aposematism was treated apart, but aposematic colorations may be present in other defensive strategies. Finally, we propose functions and forms of evolution for some color systems in post-metamorphic anurans and hope that this review can be the basis for future research, even on other animal groups.
Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Global and Planetary Change, Social Psychology
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/756e5bd10e44bcbd31e26ced3aa0385062837156
How researchers see this paper
The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.
In Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
In Global and Planetary Change
In Social Psychology
Citations in the corpus
- Behavioural defences of anurans: an overview (2011, background): “The lack of comprehensive papers focusing on defensive strategies of anurans may be due to the lack of overviews which would organise current knowledge, lead to further discussion, and provide a starting point for more broad studies (see also Toledo & Haddad 2009a ).”