Bob Yirka is a writer for Phys.org.
Credit is given to the book "PukiWiki"
A team of researchers from Brown University, the University of Vienna and Smith College found that giving male Bornean rock frog testosterone pushes them to exaggerate their kicking gestures. The kicking gesture evolved as a means to intimidate other males by taking advantage of their visual system according to the group's paper published in the Royal Society B.
The kicking gestures of the Bornean rock frog intimidate other males. If males want to ensure they produce offspring, they have to take action. Prior research has shown that Bornean rock Frogs do not look like worms. The Bornean rock frog can't hear anything around them most of the time because they live near rapidly moving water. The kicking gestures were caused by the constant noise because males cannot make threatening noises like other species. The researchers theorize that the kicking gesture is related to the worm reaction and can be used in an intimidating way.
The researchers gave some of the frog a small dose of testosterone to test their theory. They believed that by doing so, the frog would be more intimidating to other males and would be able to mate with nearby females. Testing showed that was what happened. The testosterone could scare rivals more than they would have otherwise. The kicking gesture is related to fear of non-wormlike movement, so the researchers have not tested the other males yet, to see if the exaggerated kicking actually makes them fear more. Waiting for the males to do their kicking gesture sometimes took hours.
Testosterone is used to amplify the negative valence of an agonistic gestural display by exploiting receiver perceptual bias. There is a DOI: 10.1098/rspb.
The Royal Society B has a journal.
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The Bornean rock frog testosterone was found to exaggerate their kicking gestures.
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