Description of the advertisement and distress call of Chacophrys pierottii and comments on the advertisement call of Lepidobatrachus llanensis (Anura: Ceratophryidae)

Abstract

Chacophrys is a monotypic genus in the family Ceratophryidae which also contains Ceratophrys and Lepidobatrachus. In this paper an analysis of the acoustic repertoire of Chacophrys pierottii is presented and compared with calls from other Ceratophryidae species. The advertisement call of Chacophrys is composed of pulsed notes with a higher dominant frequency and a marked bioacoustic differentiation with respect to Ceratophrys and Lepidobatrachus. Moreover, new contributions to the bioacoustical knowledge of Lepidobatrachus llanensis are reported.

Keywords:

• Chacoan burrowing frog
• Lepidobatrachus
• Ceratophrys
• vocalization
• Chaco ecoregion

Acknowledgements

I want to thank Julian Faivovich who kindly read the manuscript and made valuable comments. I also thank the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions. I am very grateful to Manuel Nores who kindly provided the SONY TCM 5000 and the microphone for my field activities; to Emiliano Galli, Silvana Longo and Cecilia Garcia for their help in field; to Cecilia Garcia and Iliana Martinez for her assistance with the English and to Diego Baldo for sharing the acoustic material of Ceratophrys cranwelli. The Doctorado en Ciencias Biológicas, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba and Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET) provided the doctoral fellowship and the Secretaría de Ambiente de la Provincia de Córdoba granted permission to collect the amphibians in the field. This work was partially funded by Rufford Small Grants for Nature Conservation.