Alloparental care in the marine sculpinAlcichthys alcicornis (Pisces: Cottidae): Copulating in conjunction with paternal care

The elkhorn sculpinAlcichthys alcicornis spawns and subsequently copulates, and the eggs are then cared for by the male. DNA fingerprinting was used to determine the paternity of males for the clutches guarded by them. When a female was mated with 4 males in succession in aquaria, males did not fertilize the eggs spawned just before copulation unless the female was unimpregnated but fathered the eggs spawned by the female later. In the field, near the end of the breeding season, males were genetically unrelated to the clutches in their territories. We concluded that males guard non-kin eggs for the opportunity to copulate and to fertilize the future clutches of their mates.