Toshiaki Mori‡, Risa Murai‡, Takeshi Ito§, Seiya Okuno§, Yuya Kobayashi§, Tomoyuki Uehara‡, Shun Satoh|Corresponding author: Toshiaki Mori ( mori.toshiaki@aquamarine.or.jp ) Corresponding author: Shun Satoh ( symphysodondiscus@icloud.com ) © Toshiaki Mori, Risa Murai, Takeshi Ito, Seiya Okuno, Yuya Kobayashi, Tomoyuki Uehara, Shun Satoh. This is an open access preprint distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Citation:
Mori T, Murai R, Ito T, Okuno S, Kobayashi Y, Uehara T, Satoh S (2022) Reproduction of marble-mouth frogfish Lophiocharon lithinostomus (Lophiiformes, Antennariidae) and the evolution of parental care among frogfishes. ARPHA Preprints. https://doi.org/10.3897/arphapreprints.e84895 |  |
Here, we observed the reproductive behavior of marble-mouth frogfish (Lophiocharon lithinostomus) and the morphology of newly hatched juveniles under captive conditions. Adult males showed pursuit behavior towards females approximately seven days before spawning; spawning and ejaculation took place almost simultaneously. An adult female cared for a fertilized egg mass adhered to their right of the left side of the flank. The position of the adhered eggs on the flank was left-biased (3 on the right and 25 on the left). The females exhibited a proactive fanning behavior towards the egg masses using their dorsal fins; the fanning frequency increased over time after spawning. Meanwhile, the males did not display any form of parental care behavior. The eggs had hook-like structures that might enable the eggs to attach to the flank of the parent. Hatching occurred between 22 and 28 days after spawning. Newly hatched juveniles already had a full set of fin rays; their morphology was similar to that of adult fish. Moreover, we reviewed the evolution of parental care behaviors and egg types among frogfish family.