Accepted by P. Simoes: 12 Dec. 2017; published: 13 Feb. 2018
137
ZOOTAXA
ISSN 1175-5326 (print edition)
ISSN 1175-5334 (online edition)
Copyright © 2018 Magnolia Press
Zootaxa 4379 (1): 137–139
http://www.mapress.com/j/zt/
Correspondence
https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4379.1.9
http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:522BCC54-1368-47AD-8305-5FAF1C5BCC47
The aggressive call of Dendropsophus cruzi (Pombal & Bastos, 1998)
(Anura; Hylidae) in Central Brazil
TAINÃ LUCAS ANDREANI
1
, SEIXAS REZENDE OLIVEIRA
2
, VINÍCIUS GUERRA
3
,
ROGÉRIO PEREIRA BASTOS
4
& ALESSANDRO RIBEIRO DE MORAIS
5
1
Programa de Pós-Graduação em Biodiversidade Animal, Universidade Federal de Goiás, CEP 74.001-970, Goiânia, GO, Brazil.
E-mail: tainarv@gmail.com
2
Programa de Pós-Graduação em Biodiversidade e Conservação, Instituto Federal Goiano, Campus Rio Verde, 75901-970, Cx Postal
66, Rio Verde, GO, Brazil. E-mail: seixasbiologia@gmail.com
3
Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ecologia de Ambientes Aquáticos Continentais (PEA), Universidade Estadual de Maringá (UEM),
CEP: 87020-900, Maringá, PR, Brazil. E-mail: vinicius.guerrabatista@gmail.com
4
Departamento de Ecologia, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal de Goiás, CEP 74.001-970, Goiânia, GO, Brazil.
E-mail: rogerioiscinax@gmail.com
5
Instituto Federal Goiano, Campus Rio Verde, Caixa Postal 66, CEP 75.901-970 Rio Verde, Goiás, Brazil.
E-mail: alessandro.ribeiro.morais@gmail.com
Dendropsophus cruzi (Pombal & Bastos, 1998) is a small hylid (male snout-to-vent length = 16.3–19.4 mm; female SVL
= 21.3–25.0 mm) that is allocated in the D. microcephalus group (Faivovich et al. 2005). It is commonly found in Open
and forested areas from Central Brazil to Provincia Velasco, Departamento de Santa Cruz, Bolivia (Frost 2017; Tessarolo
et al. 2016). Pombal & Bastos (1998) described the advertisement call of D. cruzi as a single pulsed note. Posteriorly,
studies uncovered relationships between dominant frequency variation in the advertisement calls of D. cruzi and
variation in the SVL and mass of males (Bastos et al. 2003), as well as the existence of a clinal geographic pattern in the
variation of acoustic parameters of these calls (Tessarolo et al. 2016). However, the acoustic communication in anurans
is usually mediated by more than one vocalization type (Toledo et al. 2015). Due the importance of call types in the
social context of anurans (e.g., Reichert 2011; Forti et al. 2017), we expand the vocal repertoire of D. cruzi by describing
its aggressive call.
We recorded the advertisement and aggressive calls of nine males of D. cruzi at different ponds located in
municipalities of Itajá (18°53’44” S, 51°40’24” W; 511 m a.s.l.; n = 5 males; November 2016), Caldas Novas (17°49'41"
S, 48°39'05" W; 805 m a.s.l.; n = 1 male; November 2014), Pilar de Goiás (14°48’31.61” S, 49°31’36.36” W; 736 m
a.s.l.; n = 1 male; February 2017), and Rio Verde (17°50’46.84” S, 50°52’23.41” W; 672 m a.s.l.; n = 2 males; December
2016), State of Goiás, Central Brazil. In all cases, we observed males during acoustic interactions with conspecific
individuals (territorial dispute; Toledo et al. 2015), and two of these interactions escalated to physical combat. We
obtained the vocalizations using a Marantz PMD 660 or TASCAN DR-40 recorder (sample rate 44 kHz and 16-bit
resolution, stored in .wav files) with a Sennheiser ME66 microphone placed at about 50 cm from the calling frog. All
recordings were conducted during the night (from 19:00h to 00:00h). Voucher specimens were deposited at the
Zoological Collection of Universidade Federal de Goiás (ZUFG 9577) and at the Herpetological Collection of Instituto
Federal Goiano, Campus Rio Verde (IFRV 390-95).
For each recorded individual, we analyzed five advertisement calls and all emitted aggressive calls. We used Raven
Pro 1.4 (Bioacoustics Research Program 2011) to analyze the temporal and spectral parameters of the calls. The
following parameters were measured: pulse rate (pulses/s), call duration (s), pulse number (pulses/calls), pulse duration
(s), dominant frequency (Hz), upper and lower frequencies (Hz), frequency amplitude (Hz), and total repetition rate
(calls/min) (see Forti et al. 2015). Call description and terminology followed Toledo et al. (2015). Spectrograms and
waveforms were prepared using the R package Seewave 1.6.4 (Sueur et al. 2008), with the following settings: window
name (Fourier transform window) = Hanning; window length = 256 samples; overlap = 90%.
The advertisement call (Fig. 1) of D. cruzi was composed by a single pulsed note and the call duration varied from
0.006 to 0.023 s (mean = 0.013 ± 0.004 s; n = 50 calls). The pulse number and pulse duration varied, respectively, from 1
to 8 pulses/call (X = 3.775 ± 1.49; n = 50 calls) and from 0.002 to 0.008 s (mean = 0.003 ± 0.001 s; n = 150 pulses). Pulse
rate ranged from 166.66 to 347.82 pulses/s (mean = 278.21 ± 42.59 pulses/s; n = 50 calls). Repetition rate ranged from 88