A Natural History of Amphibians by Robert C. Stebbins

Author:Robert C. Stebbins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2021-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Location and Shape of Egg Clusters (the “Spawn”)

We discuss here general aspects. Some of the many and diverse methods, particularly in anurans, for special handling of spawn, from foam-nest building to stomach brooding, are discussed in chapter 18. Most amphibians lay their eggs in fresh water (figs. 17.10A, 11 A). Many, however, deposit them in moist places on land (figs. 17.10B, 11B), as do caecilians, most plethodontid salamanders, and evidently all eleutherodactyline frogs. Eggs laid in water may be deposited separately or in small groups of two or three, or they may be deposited in grapelike clusters (figs. 17.12A,B), spheres, and in some anurans in floating “rafts,” and in beadlike or cylindrical strings (many bufonids). Eggs may be free or attached to objects in the water. Terrestrial plethodontid salamanders lay their eggs in grapelike clusters, some with the eggs variously connected with slender strands of jelly in a rosary like string (the strands sometimes broken) or attached to surfaces by individual pediceled bases. In some species, the eggs are suspended by jelly strands from the ceiling of the nest cavity (fig. 17.11B). In the Sticky Caecilian (Ichthyophis glutinosus) (Sri Lanka), a terrestrial species, two or three dozen eggs are laid in a grapelike cluster in moist soil near a spring, pond, or stream (Breckenridge and Jayasinghe, 1979). The eggs are attached by slender stalks. Nipplelike structures at the free end of some of the eggs may represent broken stalks, suggesting that the eggs emerge in a rosarylike string.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.