History of UT Herpetology, Part 2: Mike Ryan's Work on Amphibian Communication

July 13, 2021 • by Nicole Elmer
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 A male Túngara frog. (Photo: Ryan Taylor)


Mike and his daughter Lucy in the field.

Ryan worked with ecologists Stan Rand and Merlin Tuttle, and with the latter revealed that the Túngara mating call also attracted predators like the fringe-lipped bat (Trachops cirrhosus). Ryan would complete a postdoctoral Miller Fellowship at the University of California at Berkeley where he added phylogenetic analyses to his studies of investigated sexual selection and communication of the Túngara frog, seeking to understand how the female’s mate choice among conspecific males influenced the evolution of the male’s courtship display: his vocalizations.

What does a Túngara frog mating call sound like? This short video by Ryan reveals the nocturnal mating call which he has humorously noted as being like something from a classic Star Wars movie.

The sounds you hear in this call are not always the same. As Ryan explains it, when the male is alone, he will rarely add that “chuck” noise that comes at the end of the initial “whine.” The male will add the “chuck” when he is in a group of other frogs. This gives him a better chance to grab the attention of a female.

It’s a delicate balance though. By advertising himself to the nocturnal world, the Túngara frog is not only telling females he’s available, he’s also letting predators know where he is. This is an example of opposing forces of natural and sexual selection, one of the foci  of Ryan’s research, as well as other effects on the male frog’s mating call such as the female’s auditory system, environmental influences on calls, and the male’s morphology. Ryan’s work on the Túngara frog was published in The Túngara Frog: A Study of Sexual Selection and Communication (1985) and is a classic in the field.

Ryan also has researched the behaviors of other animals such as fish, salamanders, and birds. His approach always considers an integrative approach. “The future of animal behavior lies in its integration. The whole animal is at the intersection of those disciplines that concern processes inside the skin, such as genetics, development, and neuroscience, and those outside the skin, such as ecology, population biology, and evolution.”

As an educator and mentor, Ryan’s former grad students, interns, and post docs are plenty. Ryan is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association of the Advancement of Science, and the Guggenheim Foundation.

Want to learn more? Start with the beginning blog on the beginning of UT Herpetology and the influence of William Frank Blair. Then check out our third blog on the history of UT Herpetology with this article on the "Lizard Man," the late Eric Pianka. Part four explores the establishment of the Texas Memorial Museum and current research in herpetology as of 2022.

Thanks to Mike Ryan and Travis Laduc for review and edits.

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