REPEATABILITY OF MATE CHOICE - THE EFFECT OF SIZE IN THE AFRICAN PAINTED REED FROG, HYPEROLIUS-MARMORATUS

Female painted reed frogs were offered a choice between artificial advertisement calls differing in frequency. Repeatability of mate choice was assessed by multiple testing of females. When the difference between the stimuli was 400 Hz, almost all females, regardless of size, consistently chose the low frequency call. When the frequency difference between the calls was smaller (200 Hz), females as a group appeared to choose at random. However, individual females seemed to show repeatability of mate choice. There was also a relationship between female size and the number of times they chose the lower frequency stimuli. This suggests that the manner in which females respond to stimuli that differ in frequency may be size-dependent. Larger females may be more sensitive to variation in call frequency, and therefore more likely to express a mating preference for low frequency calls.