TERRITORIAL-MALE SALAMANDERS HAVE FORAGING TACTICS ATTRACTIVE TO GRAVID FEMALES

During courtship periods, female red-backed salamanders, Plethodon cin ereus, 'squash' male faecal pellets and prefer to associate with males that have the residue of lightly armoured prey (termites) in their fa eces relative to males with the residue of highly armoured prey (ants) . Apparently this rapid assessment of a male's diet allows females to assess his territorial quality. Two hypotheses, derived from these dat a, were tested. In a habitat where ants are common but termites are ra re, (1) males should preferentially feed on termites in a choice situa tion with ants and (2) males should need to learn less about foraging tactics used to capture termites than to capture ants. Males were trai ned for 21 days on a diet of only termites, only ants, both prey types together, or neither (dipterans as a diet) and then were compared for their foraging successes when presented with an equal ratio of termit es and ants. Under ah conditions of training, males preferred to eat t ermites. Males learned to begin attacks on ants faster when trained on ants, and on termites faster when trained on termites. Those trained on ants learned to capture ants more efficiently (fewer tongue-strikes per capture) and, thus, they reduced the time from encounter to captu re relative to other training conditions. However, training had no sig nificant influence on capture efficiency (consistently high) and time from encounter to capture of termites (consistently short). Therefore, males have to learn more to refine their foraging tactics with ants t han with termites and are more efficient foragers on a prey type that makes them attractive to females.