Kin cannibals: recently hatched

Abstract

Cannibalism is a behaviour exhibited across amphibian life history stages; however, there are few records that involve cannibalism between siblings. Here, we describe observations of recently hatched tadpoles of the frog Philoria pughi consuming sibling embryos with delayed or failed development. Our observations indicate that additional nutrition is obtained from the ingested embryos, despite tadpoles of species of Philoria being capable of endotrophic development. This discovery should be considered when establishing captive breeding colonies for Philoria species and needs further investigation in wild populations.