Odorrana tormota, also known as the concave-eared torrent frog, is a species of frog native to China. Its distribution is restricted to Huangshan in Anhui and Jiande and Anji County counties in northern Zhejiang. It occurs in fast-flowing streams and the surrounding habitats, and breeds in streams.
Taxonomy
This species was formerly placed in the genus
Amolops and later on separated in a
monotypic genus
Wurana. It was eventually recognized to belong in the
genus Odorrana where it is perhaps closely related to
O. versabilis and the long-snout torrent frog (
O. nasica) which also was for long placed in
Amolops.
[Cai et al. (2007)] The informally assigned common name for frogs in this genus (and for frogs in certain other genera) is
torrent frog
Ultrasonic communication
Concave-eared torrent frog is the first frog (and the first non-mammalian vertebrate) demonstrated to both produce and perceive
Ultrasound frequencies. These frogs' preferred habitat is adjacent to rapidly moving water which produces perpetual low-frequency background noise. Thus, the use of high-frequency calls is believed to facilitate intraspecific communication within the frogs' noisy environment.
Concave-eared torrent frogs have extremely thin recessed in their ears, which allows for the ear bones that connect the drum to sound processing part of the ear to be shorter and lighter. Most frogs have thick eardrums close to the surface of the skin and can only hear frequencies below 12 hertz. Concave-eared torrent frogs have been recorded chirping at 128 kHz.
Blinking communication
To overcome the noise of streams, female concave-eared torrent frogs use eyeblinks to communicate with males to initiate mating. This is the only case of the use of blinking outside humans and some primates.
See also
-
Hole-in-the-head frog ( Huia cavitympanum)
-
(2007): Paraphyly of Chinese Amolops (Anura, Ranidae) and phylogenetic position of the rare Chinese frog, Amolops tormotus. Zootaxa 1531: 49–55. PDF fulltext
External links
