A team of researchers from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador has described a new species of treefrog from Cordillera del Condor, a largely unexplored range in the eastern Andes.
Hyloscirtus hillisi. Image credit: Gustavo Pazmiño, BIOWEB Ecuador.
The newly-discovered treefrog belongs to Hyloscirtus, a genus of 37 species distributed from Costa Rica to the Andes of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela.
Named Hyloscirtus hillisi, the new species is characterized by dark-brown coloration with contrasting bright orange flecks.
“Curiously, the frog has an extraordinary, enlarged claw-like structure located at the base of the thumb,” said team leader Dr. Santiago Ron and colleagues.
“Its function is unknown, but it could be that it is used either as a defense against predators or as a weapon in fights between competing males.”
Unlike other frogs, Hyloscirtus hillisi has a claw at the base of the thumb. Image credit: Gustavo Pazmiño, BIOWEB Ecuador.
Hyloscirtus hillisi is only known from two nearby sites on the slopes of a flattop limestone mountain in the Río Quimi basin, Ecuador’s Zamora Chinchipe province, at elevations between 6,532 and 7,001 feet (1,991 and 2,134 m).
“To reach the tabletop, we walked two days along a steep terrain,” the scientists explained.
“Then, between sweat and exhaustion, we arrived to the tabletop where we found a dwarf forest.”
“The rivers had blackwater and the frogs were sitting along them, on branches of brown shrubs similar in color to the frogs’ own.”
“The frogs were difficult to find, because they blended with their background,” added team member Dr. Alex Achig.
Despite being newly described, Hyloscirtus hillisi is already at risk of extinction.
“Cordillera del Condor is threatened by large and small-scale mining which has already affected amphibian populations,” the researchers said.
“Because of its small known distribution and nearby habitat destruction and mining activities, we suggest to assign the new species to the Critically Endangered category in the IUCN list.”
The discovery is reported in the journal ZooKeys.
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S.R. Ron et al. 2018. A new treefrog from Cordillera del Cóndor with comments on the biogeographic affinity between Cordillera del Cóndor and the Guianan Tepuis (Anura, Hylidae, Hyloscirtus). ZooKeys 809: 97-124; doi: 10.3897/zookeys.809.25207
