Food habits and ontogenetic diet shifts of the litter dwelling frog proceratophrys boiei (wied)

Food habits and ontogenetic diet shifts of the litter dwelling frog proceratophrys boiei (wied)

Ariovaldo A. Giaretta^*; Márcio S. Araújo; Hermes F. de Medeiros; Katia G. Facure

Departamento de Zoologia, Instituto de Biologia, Universidade Estadual de Campinas. Caixa Postal 6109, 13083-970 Campinas, São Paulo, Brasil

ABSTRACT

Here is described the diet of Proceratophrys boiei (Wied, 1825), a leaf litter frog of the Atlantic Forest, and test for relationships between frog size and prey size and type. The diet was determined by stomach content analysis. In 38 frogs, was found 76 prey items belonging to 23 taxa. Insects predominate in the diet and the most frequent categories were coleopterans (39.4% of total volume) and orthopterans (25.0%). There was a positive correlation between frog size and volume of prey taken. The most important ontogenetic shift in prey type was an increase in the consume of coleopterans and insect larvae with increasing frog size.

Key Words: Amphibia, Anura, Leptodactylidae, Proceratophrys boiei, food habits, litter frog, Atlantic Forest, Brazil

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. We thank to G. Machado for helping in the field work, C.E.P. de Souza for the identification of the arthropods and J. Shepherd for permission to use FITOPAC. I. Sazima, A.J. Cardoso and C.F.B. Haddad critically read the draft. A.T. de Souza helped in the statistical analysis. Two anonymous reviewers made useful comments on the draft. Grants by CNPq (A.A.G. and H.F. de M.) and CAPES (M.S.A. and K.G.F.).

Recebido em 16.I.1997; aceito em 19.V.1998.

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Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  10 July 2009
• Date of issue
  1998

History

• Received
  16 Jan 1997
• Accepted
  19 May 1998