title: Poison frogs rely on experience to find the way home in the rainforest.
abstract: Among vertebrates, comparable spatial learning abilities have been found in birds, mammals, turtles and fishes, but virtually nothing is known about such abilities in amphibians. Overall, amphibians are the most sedentary vertebrates, but poison frogs (Dendrobatidae) routinely shuttle tadpoles from terrestrial territories to dispersed aquatic deposition sites. We hypothesize that dendrobatid frogs rely on learning for flexible navigation. We tested the role of experience with the local cues for poison frog way-finding by (i) experimentally displacing territorial males of Allobates femoralis over several hundred metres, (ii) using a harmonic direction finder with miniature transponders to track these small frogs, and (iii) using a natural river barrier to separate the translocated frogs from any familiar landmarks. We found that homeward orientation was disrupted by the translocation to the unfamiliar area but frogs translocated over similar distances in their local area showed significant homeward orientation and returned to their territories via a direct path. We suggest that poison frogs rely on spatial learning for way-finding in their local area.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna, Althanstrasse 14, 1090 Vienna, Austria andrius.pasukonis@univie.ac.at.
authors.forename: Andrius
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pašukonis
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna, Althanstrasse 14, 1090 Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Ian
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Warrington
authors.affiliation: Department of Integrative Zoology, University of Vienna, Althanstrasse 14, 1090 Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Max
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ringler
authors.affiliation: Department of Integrative Zoology, University of Vienna, Althanstrasse 14, 1090 Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Walter
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Hödl
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001001:Anura / Q000502:physiology*; D003463:Cues; D005616:French Guiana; D008297:Male; D009949:Orientation; D065947:Rainforest; D065854:Spatial Navigation
keywords: Dendrobatidae; amphibian learning; amphibian navigation; spatial cognition; spatial orientation