In the dyeing poison dart frog (Dendrobates tinctorius) females never piggyback tadpoles in the wild, it is always the male. But in the lab when O’Connell removed males she found the females often (if not always) stepped up and took on the role. When she looked inside the frogs’ brains, she found this behaviour associated with the activation of a particular type of neuron in the hypothalamus that expresses a neuropeptide called galanin, regardless of their sex. ‘The circuitry facilitating parental behaviour is the same in males and females,’ O’Connell told me.
