Articles

The body condition dynamics of Pelobates fuscus toadlets from three local populations (namely, Lakes Sadok, Kruglen’koe and Lebyazhye: the Medveditsa river valley, Saratov region) in the period of their migration from spawning lakes in 2013 is characterized by the bimodality of most parameters. In the population from the waterbody with a constant hydrological regime (Lake Lebyazhye), two peaks of the size and weight traits and body condition of toadlets are formed in this period.

When a female goes over to the settled way of life, the territory of a male with a high frequency of affiliative behavior (A-behavior) with respect to this female always becomes the formation centre of the female’s permanent home range. As the frequency of the male’s A-behavior becomes stably high (or low) in the first days of existence of a dyad and does not depend on the female’s behavior, it can be concluded that the choice of the male, rather than that of the female, underlies any long-term male - female connection, and it is just social choice rather than sexual one.

When studying the late Cenozoic history of amphibians and reptiles, a number of problems arise, associated with obtaining and interpretation of factual material. First of all, the author considers peculiarities of obtaining and identifying fossil material, which strongly affects the amount and quality of paleontological data. Most biologists are not familiar with them. These are problems of taphonomy, demand, economy, personnel, collection and systematic problems.

The results of our first short-term study of a unique Rana temporaria population in May, 2015, are reported. This population was formed in the southern Kamchatka as a result of releasing 150 immature frogs in the spring of 2005. The numbers of breeding females was 2,648 in 2015. The activity season duration at the release locality (4 months) is 2 months shorter than that at the original locality of the translocated frogs in Moscow district.