title: Take the long way home: Behaviour of a neotropical frog, Allobates femoralis, in a detour task.
abstract: Detour behaviour, an individual's ability to reach its goal by taking an indirect route, has been used to test spatial cognitive abilities across a variety of taxa. Although many amphibians show a strong homing ability, there is currently little evidence of amphibian spatial cognitive flexibility. We tested whether a territorial frog, Allobates femoralis, can flexibly adjust its homing path when faced with an obstacle. We displaced male frogs from their calling sites into the centre of circular arenas and recorded their escape routes. In the first experiment we provided an arena with equally high walls. In the second experiment we doubled the height of the homeward facing wall. Finally, we provided a tube as a shortcut through the high wall. In the equal-height arena, most frogs chose to escape via the quadrant facing their former calling site. However, when challenged with different heights, nearly all frogs chose the low wall, directing their movements away from the calling site. In the "escape tunnel" experiment most frogs still chose the low wall. Our results show that displaced A. femoralis males can flexibly adjust their homing path and avoid (presumably energetically costly) obstacles, providing experimental evidence of spatial cognitive flexibility in an amphibian.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna, Althanstrasse 14, A-1090 Vienna, Austria. Electronic address: munteanualexandru@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Alexandru Marian
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Munteanu
authors.affiliation: Department of Integrative Zoology, University of Vienna, Althanstrasse 14, A-1090 Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Iris
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Starnberger
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna, Althanstrasse 14, A-1090 Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Andrius
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pašukonis
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna, Althanstrasse 14, A-1090 Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Bugnyar
authors.affiliation: Department of Integrative Zoology, University of Vienna, Althanstrasse 14, A-1090 Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Walter
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Hödl
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna, Althanstrasse 14, A-1090 Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: William Tecumseh
authors.initials: WT
authors.lastname: Fitch
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D008297:Male; D011898:Ranidae; D065854:Spatial Navigation / Q000502:physiology*; D013731:Territoriality
keywords: Amphibian behaviour; Dendrobatidae; Homing; Obstacle avoidance; Spatial cognitive flexibility