IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v440y2006i7086d10.1038_nature04403.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Parental investment by skin feeding in a caecilian amphibian

Author

Listed:
  • Alexander Kupfer

    (The Natural History Museum)

  • Hendrik Müller

    (The Natural History Museum
    Leiden University)

  • Marta M. Antoniazzi

    (Instituto Butantan)

  • Carlos Jared

    (Instituto Butantan)

  • Hartmut Greven

    (Institut für Zoomorphologie und Zellbiologie der Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Universitätstrasse)

  • Ronald A. Nussbaum

    (University of Michigan)

  • Mark Wilkinson

    (The Natural History Museum)

Abstract

Yummy mummy A highly unusual form of parental care has been identified in a mysterious group of tropical vertebrates. In the oviparous amphibian Boulengerula taitanus, the young use specialized teeth to peel and eat the outer layer of their mother's modified skin, thereby ensuring a good start in life. This bizarre behaviour can be seen as an evolutionary link paving the way for fetal feeding on the oviduct lining of related viviparous amphibians. The movies, in the Supplementary Information on http://www.nature.com , are pretty gory.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexander Kupfer & Hendrik Müller & Marta M. Antoniazzi & Carlos Jared & Hartmut Greven & Ronald A. Nussbaum & Mark Wilkinson, 2006. "Parental investment by skin feeding in a caecilian amphibian," Nature, Nature, vol. 440(7086), pages 926-929, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:440:y:2006:i:7086:d:10.1038_nature04403
    DOI: 10.1038/nature04403
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature04403
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature04403?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:440:y:2006:i:7086:d:10.1038_nature04403. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.