The reproductive behaviour of Pogonophryne scotti confirms widespread egg-guarding parental care among Antarctic notothenioids.
In this paper, the first documentation of egg-guarding behaviour in an artedidraconid species, Pogonophryne scotti, through in situ photographic imagery obtained during video transects is provided. The male specimen was observed closely guarding a well-defined multi-layered egg mass deposited on the sea floor at 240 m on the southern South Orkney Islands shelf in the northern Weddell Sea. Egg-guarding parental care is present in species that are distributed among all of the major lineages of Antarctic notothenioids; however, lack of information on egg-deposition behaviours in Bovichtidae and Pseudaphritis prevents assessment of whether parental care originated prior to the origin of the Antarctic notothenioid radiation.
Antarctic Ecosystem Research Division, Southwest Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, NOAA, 3333 N. Torrey Pines Court, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA. chris.d.jones@noaa.gov
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D000818:Animals; D000864:Antarctic Regions; D009425:Nesting Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D010473:Perciformes / Q000502:physiology*; D012726:Sexual Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology*