Mimic poison frogs are utterly amazing, famous for mimicking multiple different frog species, and like other dart frogs they demonstrate bi-parental care where both male and female frogs team up to look after the young. What we didn't know was how flexible these parental roles are - can females step in to move tadpoles when males start slacking, and what triggers them to do so? It turns out they can, but they don't always.
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Main Paper References:
Moss JB, Winter BM, Westrick SE, Julkowski K, Podraza ME, Fischer EK. 2026. Partner cues and individual variation underlie sex-reversed parental care in poison frogs. Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences 293:20252200. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2025.2200.
Other Mentioned Papers/Studies:
Moss JB, Tumulty JP, Fischer EK. 2023 Evolution of acoustic signals associated with cooperative parental behavior in a poison frog. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 120, e2218956120. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2218956120
Other Links/Mentions:
Buy Pyro by Dallin Kohler: https://www.torreyhouse.org/pyro
Kohler, Dallin. 2025. Pyro: The Quest for a Beautifully Elusive Snake. 979-8-89092-022-5
Editing and Music:
Intro/outro – Treehouse by Ed Nelson
Species Bi-week theme – Michael Timothy
Other Music – The Passion HiFi, https://www.thepassionhifi.com
