Some animals make chemical defences against predators; others obtain them from their food. Researchers have now found the first example of parents chemically arming their young after birth.
Ralph Saporito of John Carroll University in University Heights, Ohio, and his colleagues analysed specimens of the strawberry poison frog Oophaga pumilio (pictured) from all stages of the life cycle. Newly hatched tadpoles had no defensive alkaloids, but after their mothers began producing unfertilized 'nutritive eggs' for them to eat, tadpole alkaloid concentrations rose. Adult frogs obtain the alkaloids from ants and mites in their diet.
Hand-reared O. pumilio that were fed nutritive eggs from another frog species lacking chemical defences remained alkaloid-free.
Ecology http://doi.org/p59 (2013)
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Mother frogs arm their tadpoles. Nature 503, 441 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/503441b
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/503441b
