It’s dance of war, not love, for Karnataka’s own Kottigehara frog

BENGALURU:  Birds are commonly known to perform fantastic dance routines to attract mates, but here is a frog species from Karnataka that gyrates to stamp its authority over its boundaries.

For the first time, a study was conducted comparing the Kottigehara dancing frog with the Bornean rock frog (foot flagging frog). Both species have similar dance moves and are found in similar regions.

But the study proved that they dance for completely different reasons, setting off leading batrachologists (those who study amphibians, including frogs) from Bengaluru and other countries to take up more detailed research.

The study -- ‘A Common Endocrine Signature Marks the Convergent Evolution of an Elaborate Dance Display in Frogs’, which was released in November 2021 -- assessed the behaviour of frogs and reasons for their dancing.

KV Gururaj, a co-author of the study and Adjunct Scientist at the Research and Development Centre and Science Media Centre, Indian Institute of Science Campus, Gubbi Labs, told The New Indian Express, “The Bornean rock frog, which resides behind streams, makes a loud beep call and raises its leg and dances to draw the attention of its mate. But the Kottigehara dancing frog, found in the Western Ghats, again along the river, dances to mark its territory and show its superiority.”

The two species were chosen as they not only have a similar behaviour but also the dancing style, which includes lifting of hind legs. 

Since the reasons for their dancing were found to be different, researchers are out to study other species and understand why frogs in South America and Australia too dance.

Scientifically, frogs do not dance, but only make a gestural display.  

Researchers said that they studied how common traits arise in unrelated species that often evolve similar phenotypic solutions to the same environmental problem.