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Evidence of Ultrasonic Communication in an Amphibian

Long time TDT customers, Albert Feng (University of Illinois, Urbana), Peter Narins (University of California, Los Angeles), and Jun-Xian Shen (Chinese Academy of Sciences) use TDT System 3 in their work on ultrasonic communication in an amphibian. Feng, Narins, Shen (and his students) have discovered that the concave-eared torrent frog (Amolops tormotus) can detect and respond to the ultrasonic components in the calls of their cohorts, allowing them to communicate above the intense, predominantly low-frequency ambient noise from local streams.

Putting System 3 to work …

After acoustic playback experiments in the frogs’ natural habitat showed that male calling rates for A. tormotus increased in response to playback of ultrasonic components of a previously recorded signal, the researchers sought to confirm the results through electrophysiological testing in the lab. A TDT System 3 data acquisition system in Dr. Shen's Beijing lab was used to record auditory-evoked potentials (AEPs) from the torus semicircularis, the dominant midbrain auditory processing center in the frog central nervous system. BrainWare was used to isolate single units for further analysis. The researchers reported that AEPs were consistently observed in response to tone bursts up to 34 kHz (presented via the TDT ES1 ultrasonic speaker) and that the distribution of the units’ best frequencies along with the AEP results demonstrated the extraordinary ultrasonic sensitivity.

Above photo courtesy of Tom Narins and side photo courtesy of Peter Narins.

For further reading:

Ultrasonic Communication in Frogs
Albert S. Feng, Peter M. Narins, Chun-He Xu, Wen-Yu Lin, Zu-Lin Yu,
Qiang Qiu, Zhi-Min Xu, & Jun-Xian Shen
Nature, Vol 440 | 16 March 2006

Ultrasonic Frogs Discovered in China Make "Silent" Calls
Amitabh Avasthi for National Geographic News, March 16, 2006
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/03/0316_060316_ultrasonic_frog.html