A Field Study of the Kansas Ant-Eating Frog, Gastrophryne olivaceaFitch, Henry S. (Henry Sheldon)
Science
A Field Study of the Kansas Ant-Eating Frog, Gastrophryne olivacea
Fitch, Henry S. (Henry Sheldon)
Frogs
3. Travel by adults to or from a breeding pond. In most or all
instances these adults were regularly established in permanent
home ranges, and they often moved through areas unsuitable
as habitat to reach the ponds.
4. Movements of dispersal in the young, recently metamorphosed
and not yet settled in a regular home range.
Usually there was uncertainty as to which types of movements had been
made by the recaptured individuals. Some may have made two or three
different types of movements in the interval between captures.
On many occasions individuals were found beneath the same rock on two
consecutive days, or occasionally on several successive days. Rarely,
such continued occupancy of a niche lasted several weeks. In 1949, a
frog was found under the same rock on June 4, 6, 26, 27, and July 1, 3
and 11. This was an immature female, presumably metamorphosed late in
the summer of 1948. During the five weeks period covered by the records,
it grew from 27 mm. to 34 mm. In 1952, another individual was found
under its home rock on June 23 and 30, July 2 and 3, and August 14 and
20. In 1952 a juvenile was found under a rock on May 30, June 4, and
June 17. These three individuals were exceptional in their continued
occupancy of the same niches. Among the hundreds of others recorded,
none was found more than twice in any one place.
Despite the fact that field work was concentrated on small areas which
were worked intensively, only eight per cent of the frogs recorded were
ever recaptured, and most of those were recaptured only once. Only 13
individuals yielded series of records, well spaced, in two or more
different years. These few individuals recaptured frequently may not be
typical of the entire population. The low incidence of recaptures
indicates that relatively few of the frogs present on an area at any one
time have been taken. Because of their secretive and subterranean habits
most of the frogs are missed by a collector who searches by turning
rocks, or trapping with pitfalls. Therefore, even though a marked frog
may survive and remain within a radius of a few hundred feet of one
point for months or even years, the chances of recapture are poor.
One female was caught first as a juvenile on June 8, 1950. On April 24,
1951, when first recaptured, she had grown to small adult size, and was
only 18 feet from the original location. On July 30, 1951, however, she
was recaptured 750 feet away. At a fourth capture on May 21, 1952, she
had shifted 70 feet farther in the same direction. At the final capture
on June 24, 1952, she was approximately 140 feet from both the third and
fourth locations. The sequence of these records suggests that the frog
had already settled in a home range at the time of her first capture in
1950, and that approximately a year later she shifted to a second home
range, which was occupied for the following year, at least.
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