Trujillo García, M., B.P., Ceballos Vázquez & H., Klug (2024). Parental care in the redhead goby, Elacatinus puncticulatus, in captivity. IAC 2024 International Aquarium Congress. México, octubre 27 - 31, 2024, 1.
Miguel Trujillo García 1, Bertha Patricia Ceballos Vázquez 1 y Hope Klug 2
Parentalcare has a strong influence on fitness, yet parental care remains undescribedin many fish species. Gobiidae is a diverse family of fishes characterized by astrong skew to paternal (i.e. male only) care. In this work, we describedparental care behavior for the first time in the redhead goby (Elacatinuspuncticulatus), a small rocky reef fish. We constructed an ethogram withthe behavioral units gathered from video recordings of caring males at theirnests in aquaria under laboratory conditions. We found that parental carebehavior was like those units documented in other gobies and included fanningand guarding. In contrast to most other gobies, redhead goby fathers engage ina brief form of post-hatching parental care. When larvae are ready to hatch,parental males take them into their mouth and then spit them out to the watercolumn. This study is the first to report this behavior in this species, and ingeneral, post-hatching paternal care is relatively rare in fishes. Males mayalso engage in courtship behaviors while caring, making it possible that thisspecies has a polygynous mating system, although future work would be needed toconfirm this hypothesis. Additionally, we documented filial cannibalism by thefemale, suggesting that females consume offspring when they remain in proximityto the nest.
Palabras clave: paternal care; behavior; ethogram; Gobiidae; Teleostei; filial cannibalism
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