Notes on mating and vocal behavior in the glassfrogs Hyalinobatrachium cappellei and Centrolene peristictum

Amphibians show elaborate and conspicuous social and reproductive behaviors. However, in Neotropical families like Centrolenidae there are few observations about the courtship behavior and other female-male or male-male interactions. The reproductive behavior of Hyalinobatrachium cappellei and Centrolene peristictum was studied at Fazenda São Nicolau, Brazil (January-February 2016-2017) and at Reserva Las Gralarias, Ecuador (February-March 2019), respectively. We observed two males of H. cappellei in amplexus and one male-male courtship event. The male-male amplexus ended when amplexed male began to call and the other male released him. During the male-male courtship, the resident male emitted advertisement and courtship calls to another male, which approached him and then left the territory. In C. peristictum, we observed two males fighting, one event of sequential polygyny where a female waited in the territory of an amplectant male to mate with him and an intruder male displacing an amplectant male, followed by female rejection of the intruder male without physical combat between the intruder and the resident male. This is the first report of partner misrecognition and displacement behaviors in glassfrogs. These observations suggest that males of H. cappellei are not aggressive, whereas males of C. peristictum fight only in some circumstances. Although, it seems that in H. cappellei males do not distinguish between other males and females, and that females of C. peristictum choose their mates based on male's traits, more observations and experimental data are needed to elucidate these partners' misrecognition and the sexual selection choices.