ABSTRACT
In fish, the majority of species do not care for their offspring after spawning, but disperse their gametes freely or, at the most, hide the eggs in the substrate (Balon, 1975). Nevertheless, 22% of all teleost fish families include species which display some kind of parental care (Blumer, 1979; Sargent and Gross, 1993). Among fish families with parental care, paternal care is found in half, maternal care in about a third, and biparental care in a fifth of these families (Blumer, 1979; Sargent and Gross, 1993). Parental care can consist of guarding the eggs from predators, fanning the eggs to provide oxygen, constructing nests to protect the offspring, or carrying the eggs, internally or externally (Balon, 1975). Parental care usually ends at the hatching of the brood, although there are species that also guard free-swimming larvae or fry, for example, some cichlids
(Fryer and Iles, 1972), centrarchids (bass and sunfish) (Gross, 1982; Brown, 1984) and sticklebacks (Wootton, 1976).
