The Herpetological Journal

pp.462-465

Authors: C. J. Reading

Abstract: In a series of laboratory experiments, male palmate newts that had no previous experience of anuran tadpoles as potential prey were conditioned for five days to small worms, common frog tadpoles, common toad tadpoles or a 50:50 mixture of frog+toad tadpoles. During three experiments, conditioned newts were offered I) a 50:50 mixture of frog+toad tadpoles 2) only frog tadpoles or 3) only toad tadpoles.
The results showed that palmate newts with no previous experience of either frog or toad tadpoles very quickly learnt to distinguish between t hem and take only frog tadpoles. This was supported by the results of a fourth experiment using male palmate newts from a pond that contained both tadpole species. Common toad tadpoles were almost totally rejected.
The conclusion is, that common frog tadpoles gain no long term protection against predation from palmate newts through associating with common toad tadpoles.