Amazonia (Peru) July 2013 – (2) amphibians & reptiles!

Dedicated exclusively to field herping.

Moderator: Scott Waters

Post Reply
User avatar
Jeroen Speybroeck
Posts: 826
Joined: June 29th, 2011, 1:56 am
Location: Belgium
Contact:

Amazonia (Peru) July 2013 – (2) amphibians & reptiles!

Post by Jeroen Speybroeck »

! Warning – this post is very, very long, but full of herps. General intro is here.

Species are presented in taxonomic order. For a chronological and more comprehensive collection, I refer to my web album.

The species pictures are followed by some nerdy considerations, for which I apologise. Let me also apologise for some repetitive photography (= sometimes a lot of what seems to be the same). Identifications are ongoing (and may remain as such for ever). I am hoping to (ab)use this post to get some ideas about the identity of certain animals we saw. I’m sure you’ll scroll your way through whatever you find less interesting.

!!! Any help in solving IDs is much appreciated => jeroenspeybroeck at hotmail dot com

AMPHIBIA

Urodela

Plethodontidae

Bolitoglossa altamazonica (Amazon climbing salamander)
There are only 2 or 3 salamander species in the Iquitos region and all belong to this genus of small lungless salamanders which has lots of species more to the north. Only seen at Madre Selva. I love the head and feet.

Image
Image

? Bolitoglossa peruviana (Peruvian climbing salamander)
Not easy to tell apart from the former, but this species has a (even) shorter snout, shorter tail, and darker belly.

Image

Anura

Bufonidae

Atelopus spumarius (common harlequin toad)
This is a beautiful member of the genus of the harlequin toads, many of which are under severe threat from the chytrid fungus. Basically diurnal and usually found near small streams, sitting on the ground or on low leaves.

Image
Image
Image

Rhinella dapsilis (sharp-nosed toad)
A sometimes beautiful orangy and smooth-skinned relative of the next species.


Image

Rhinella margaritifera (crested forest toad)
This is a common inhabitant of the forest floor, but it also sits on leaves in the undergrowth at night. Some have crazy crests and spines. Affectionately called "Mickey Mouse toad" by some of us.

Image
Image
Image
Image
Image

Rhinella marina (cane toad)
I am happy that I got to see my first of these monster giants in their natural range. Usually in clearings and somewhat disturbed habitats, rather than in the forest itself.

Image

Rhaebo guttatus (smooth-sided toad)
A second rather huge toad species, but much less frequently seen. We saw just one (Sabalillo).

Image
Image

? Dendrophryniscus minutus
In Sabalillo camp, Bobby spotted the tiniest anuran (even if juvenile). This was hinted to me by Mr. Luis Alberto Giussepe Gagliardi Urrutia to be a juvenile of the margaritifera complex. Skin texture, head shape and colours seem to differ from the (extremely numerous) margaritifera and marina juveniles we saw. Furthermore, in contrast to the former, dorsolateral ridges are lacking, as in contrast to the latter, parotoid glands are not well-developed. It looks very similar to some pictures online (e.g., at CalPhotos Berkley and on the website of Dr. Axel Kwet) as well as a picture by William W. Lamar used in Duellman (2005), all of which are attributed to Dendrophryniscus minutus. The coin has a cross-section of 25,75mm, so the animal is about 7,5mm (or 0,3 inch). Last picture by Peter.

Image
Image
Image

Aromobatidae

? Allobates femoralis (spotted-thighed poison frog)
Hard to tell apart from the next species.

Image
Image

Dendrobatidae

? Ameerega hahneli (pale-striped Amazon poison frog)

Image
Image
Image
Image

Ameerega trivittata (three-striped poison frog)
The ca. 5cm 'giant' among the dendrobatids.

Image

Ranitomeya duellmani (Duellman’s poison frog)

Image

Ranitomeya reticulata (red-backed poison frog)
Found during daytime at Sabalillo. Look for a tiny red hopping dot.

Image
Image

Ranitomeya uakarii
Peter found one while pulling some banana leaves apart, but unfortunately it got away before any picture could be made.

Ranitomeya ventrimaculata (Amazonian poison frog)
During a night hike, Peter (him again) pulled two leaves of one of the few low-hanging bromelias, and found the same number of these frogs, which immediately tried to hide themselves again.


Image
Image
Image
Image


© Bobby Bok

Hemiphractidae

Hemiphractus helioi (Peruvian casque-headed treefrog)
Behold the amazing Gonzo frog! Not often seen, so beforehand I didn't dare to hope to find one of these. I was thrilled to grab one of a leaf at Santa Cruz during the same night we found our bushmaster.

Image
Image

Hylidae

Dendropsophus brevifrons (short-nosed treefrog)

Image
Image

Dendropsophus haraldschultzi (many-striped treefrog)
Just 2 were seen, both at Madre Selva. The whereabouts of the portrayed animal were kindly hinted to us by Devon.

Image

? Dendropsophus leucophyllatus (clown treefrog)
Found in floating vegetation at Madre Selva, but particularly numerous along the edges of the pond at Santa Cruz. Great variability and lovely colours and pattern, but not that easy to tell apart from triangulum. In fact, those portrayed below might all be triangulum(?).

Image
Image
Image

Dendropsophus marmoratus (Neotropical marbled treefrog)
Looks from above like a piece of bark, or something a bird might have dropped, but this cute little frog has surprising lower surface colours.

Image
Image
Image

Dendropsophus parviceps (orange-shanked treefrog)

Image
Image

? Dendropsophus cf. parviceps
Imho, this guy looks too different (skin texture, body shape, ...) from the previous one to belong to the same species.

Image

Dendropsophus triangulum (variable clown treefrog)
See what I wrote with leucophyllatus. Love them!

Image
Image
Image

Hypsiboas boans (gladiator treefrog)
This was one of many species I had been particularly looking forward to see. Gladiator treefrogs were heard calling rather eratically, which made it hard to find one. An apocalyptical thunderstorm, however, presented us with a gift. As Bobby jumped out of bed to save some luggage from the pouring rain along the edges of the lodge’s platform, a large frog was jumping between our bags. Another story of how the herp found the herper. This species lets you hear it when you are handling it not gently enough!

Image
Image

Hypsiboas calcaratus (convict treefrog)
I really love all the larger species of this genus, but this one surely is pretty. I remember Bobby saying at the small Madre Selva pond: "I think this is something else.". As more often than not, this kind of thought was followed by a very welcome addition to our observations.

Image

Hypsiboas cinerascens (rough-skinned green treefrog)
This pretty frog was found when our spirits were down. After Frank and Peter got on the boat that would bring Frank to an Iquitos hospital, Bobby and I slowly hiked back to Santa Cruz camp in the pouring rain, as this little emerald gem jumped across the trail. The blue 'eyeliner' is stunning.

Image
Image

Hypsiboas fasciatus (spotted-thighed treefrog)
The competition is tough, but this is maybe one of the less attractive species of the genus.

Image

Hypsiboas geographicus (map treefrog)
This species and the next were among the more commonly seen species of the genus. Imho, there colours and often weird dorsal pattern makes them attractive frogs. The eyelid ornamentation is also really cool and is considered to help the resting frog to go unnoticed by predators.

Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image

Hypsiboas lanciformis (rocket treefrog)
Quite large and rather common. Once startled, it shoots off like an arrow at top speed, hence the name.

Image
Image

Hypsiboas microderma (yellow-toed treefrog)

Image
Image

? Hypsiboas cf. microderma

Image
Image

Hypsiboas nympha
A small and shiny jewel.

Image

Hypsiboas punctatus (common polkadot treefrog)
Rather common in places where clown frogs also thrive, and yet another beautiful species.

Image
Image

Osteocephalus buckleyi (bony headed treefrog)

Image

? Osteocephalus cf. cabrerai (forest bromeliad treefrog)
At first, I thought this might be Ecnomiohyla tuberculosa. The camouflage of this pretty and large "moss frog" is simply stunning.

Image
Image
Image
Image

? Osteocephalus deridens (bromeliad treefrog sp.)
Identified as probably a female O. deridens by Mr. Luis Alberto Giussepe Gagliardi Urrutia.

Image

? Osteocephalus lepreurii (common bromeliad treefrog)
While tentatively identified as O. cf. yasuni by Mr. Luis Alberto Giussepe Gagliardi Urrutia, Dr. W.E. Duellman considered this animal most likely to be O. lepreurii. Not sure at all, but after reading a little bit, I am following the latter opinion.

Image

Osteocephalus planiceps (flat-headed treefrog)
Although not sure if all portrayed animals belong to this species, this was probable our most commonly spotted Osteocephalus.

Image
Image
Image

Osteocephalus taurinus (giant broad-headed treefrog)
Beautiful eyes, which I shamefully omitted to photograph properly.

Image

Osteocephalus (cf.) yasuni (Yasuni treefrog)
Identified as probably this species by Mr. Luis Alberto Giussepe Gagliardi Urrutia.

Image
Image

Osteocephalus sp. (bromeliad treefrog sp.)

Image

Phyllomedusa bicolor (giant monkey frog)
This is the king of the monkey frogs, equally slow and clumsy as lovable. We didn't expect to see so many, while the other monkey treefrogs were seen as just one individual of each. Plenty of these friendly giants around the Santa Cruz pond. What fun they are to watch and handle for a while. Usually solitary males call from up a tree, but in one banana plant, there was some sort of, albeit civilised, bar fight going on.

Image
Image
Image
Image
Image

Phyllomedusa tomopterna (barred monkey frog)
Maybe the more beautiful of the three species.

Image
Image

Phyllomedusa vaillanti (white-striped monkey frog)
This one didn't seem to respond too well to a night in a jar, so we didn't bother it much longer.

Image

Scarthyla goinorum (slender treefrog)
A tiny treefrog. Found just a single individual only, right outside the kitchen at Madre Selva. As I read afterwards in Duellman (2005), this species is so small that it is able to leap on top of the water surface without submerging.

Image

? Scinax funereus (brown-thighed treefrog)
According to Dr. W.E. Duellman, the frog below probably belongs to this species.

Image

Scinax garbei (fringe-lipped treefrog)
The fringed chin and warty skin make this species stand out from the other, rather hard to tell apart members of the Scinax genus, and a worthy competitor in cuteness with the famous Gonzo frog (see higher).

Image
Image

? Scinax ruber (two-striped treefrog)
While some surely do, other animals portrayed below may not all belong to this species. Fourth animal was found in a bromelia in the small patio garden of Hospedaje La Pascana in Iquitos.

Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image

Sphaenorhynchus dorisae (spotted or lesser hatchet-faced treefrog)
I love how delicate and elegant this species looks. Usually on floating vegetation, but this one was found on a log in primary rainforest.
The metamorph in the second picture was identified as probably this species by Dr. W.E. Duellman.

Image
Image

Sphaenorhynchus lacteus (greater hatchet-faced treefrog)
This one is also supposed to live on floating vegetation, but I found it in the exact same bromelia where I found a Scinax a little over a week earlier - the small enclosed garden of Hospedaje La Pascana in Iquitos. This was the final addition to our species list, after which we went into the city and behaved badly for just a little bit.

Image
Image

Trachycephalus resinifictrix (Amazonian milk treefrog)
Only saw this subadult.

Image

Strabomantidae
Identifying members of the genus Pristimantis is a challenge, especially if you don't think of looking at (or photographing) all thinkable sides of each animal. Taxonomy is also still evolving. As a consequence, below are tentative identifications. It is very likely that the final set of pictures labelled as “Pristimantis sp.” contains additional species.

? Pristimantis ?achuar ?luscombei


Image

? Pristimantis altamazonicus (Amazonian rain frog)

Image
Image
Image

? Pristimantis ?carvalhoi ?academicus (long-nosed rain frog)

Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
© Peter Engelen

? Pristimantis conspicillatus (chirping rain frog)

Image
Image

? Pristimantis croceoinguinis (antnest rain frog)

Image
Image
Image
Image

??? Pristimantis delius

Image

? Pristimantis kichwarum

Image
Image
Image
Image

Pristimantis lacrimosus (peeping rain frog)
It took us a while to figure out that this was not a treefrog.

Image

? Pristimantis malkini (Malkin’s rain frog)

Image
Image

? Pristimantis martiae (Marti’s rain frog)

Image
Image
Image

? Pristimantis padiali
One of a few more colourful rain frogs and a pretty little thing it is! Reminded me in pattern a little bit of our European treefrogs. Yellow belly differentiates it from P. acuminatus.

Image
Image

Pristimantis peruvianus (Peruvian rain frog)

Image
Image
Image

? Pristimantis variabilis (variable rain frog)

Image
© Bobby Bok

? Pristimantis sp.

Image
Image
Image
Image

Strabomantis sulcatus (broad-headed rain frog)
The broad snout gives this distinctive species easily away.

Image

Oreobates quixensis (common big-headed rain frog)
This is one of the more common species, found both day and night. Not particularly attractive, but I somehow like it's round, big head. Second picture by Peter.

Image
Image

Leiuperidae

Edalorhina perezi (eyelashed forest frog)
You soon see that you found something new when you catch one of these. We found 3 or 4 very close together at Sabalillo (but none anywhere else).

Image
Image

Engystomops petersi (painted forest toadlet)
After suspecting numerous bufonid juveniles of belonging to this species, we found a couple close to where we found the previous species, as well as our single Ranitomeya reticulata.

Image
Image

Leptodactylidae

Adenomera andreae (?cocha? chirping frog) & A. hylaedactyla (?forest? chirping frog)
These two species are considered only distinguishable by call. Habitat can be used as obviously less reliable, circumstantial evidence, but there seems to be some contradiction on who’s who when comparing different sources of information. I have grouped the pictures as such that the 4 first animals are from more open areas, while the last 3 are from inside primary rainforest. The last one had me fooled to be something else at first.

Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image

? Leptodactylus leptodactyloides (common jungle frog)
Part of a species complex.

Image

Leptodactylus pentadactylus (smoky jungle frog)
A famous, huge frog that may jump like a directionless bouncing ball. Single "woop" calls carry far through the forest.

Image

? Leptodactylus petersii (Peter’s jungle frog)
Part of the same species complex as L. leptodactyloides.

Image

Lithodytes lineatus (painted antnest frog)
This species is considered a mimic of poison frogs.

Image

Microhylidae

Hamptophryne boliviana (Amazon sheep frog)
A single individual of this species became our only microhylid. The tiny anuran caught my eye somehow after only 10 minutes during yet another nocturnal strawl at Madre Selva.

Image

Pipidae

Pipa ?pipa (common Surinam toad)
Disappointing and boring to some, yet a true highlight for others, the latter including yours truly. I feel that there is nothing quite like a (living) animal that looks like it has been run over more than once. Together with a certain turtle (see below), strong evidence that Mother Nature has a healthy sense of humor.

Image
Image
Image
Image

REPTILIA

Crocodilia

Alligatoridae

Caiman crocodilus (spectacled caiman)
We saw only one species of crocodilian. Maybe we didn't focus enough on finding another. It was my first wild crocodilian ever, so I was more than happy with ‘just’ one species. First, we saw them at night in the Santa Cruz pond. Frank tried to catch one, but failed and lost a rather expensive flashlight while trying. In Madre Selva, we got some shots of one that was caught by an American guy, Chris(topher) Gillette, who has handled crocodilians a billion times. Towards the end of our trip, Peter saved the day by catching our very own gigantic caiman.

Image
Image
Image
Image

Chelonii

Chelidae

Chelus fimbriatus (matamata)
The only turtle we saw, but an absolute, yet weird highlight. Caught in the small pond behind the kitchen at Madre Selva. I found it hard to look at that face and not start laughing.

Image
Image
Image
Image

Sauria

Sphaerodactylidae

Gonatodes concinnatus (collared forest gecko)
I think we saw only one really colourful male of this species, and I believe it was the very first herp of the trip. A welcome sight while dragging a much too heavy backpack up the trail after 48hrs without any real sleep. We saw quite some more, but mostly females, which can be sometimes challenging to tell apart from the next species.

Image

Gonatodes humeralis (bridled forest gecko)
This species also has males with beautiful colours.

Image

Pseudogonatodes guianensis (Amazon pygmy gecko)
It was Bobby who first pointed out that this was not just an ugly juvenile Gonatodes.

Image

Gekkonidae

Hemidactylus mabouia (tropical house gecko)
Apart from a single animal in the kitchen at Madre Selva, only seen (in abundance) in Iquitos, including in the La Pascana garden.

Image

Phyllodactylidae

Thecadactylus solimoensis (turnip-tailed gecko)
A larger gekko with great feet. In Madre Selva, we had one in our cabin, doing its best to help us in the struggle against certain insects.

Image
Image

Gymnophthalmidae

Cercosaura ocellata (black-striped forest lizard)

Image

Cercosaura argulus (white-striped eyed lizard)
The genus Prionodactylus has been placed in synonymy with Cercosaura, and Cercosaura oshaughnessyi is a junior synonym of C. argulus (Doan, 2003; Doan & Lamar, 2012).

Image
Image


© Bobby Bok

Iphisa elegans (glossy shade lizard)
I first took this animal for a juvenile skink. Thanks to Dr. Laurie J. Vitt for pointing out the true identity of this little lizard.

Image

Potamites ecpleopus (common streamside lizard)

Image
Image

Ptychoglossus brevifrontalis

Image

Hoplocercidae

Enyalioides laticeps (Amazon forest dragon)
The adult male dragon we found early in the trip taught us that a colourful animal found during a nocturnal hike can be (a little) less so during daytime.

Image
Image
Image

Iguanidae

Iguana iguana (green iguana)
Large, but surprisingly hard to spot against a white sky. Usually seen rather high up in trees along the banks of the larger rivers. The second one was caught by a local guy.

Image
Image
Image
Image

Dactyloidae

Anolis bombiceps (blue-lipped forest anole)
We certainly saw a few more, but I only seem to have pictures of one.

Image

Anolis fuscoauratus (slender anole)
The least conspicuous and most uniform species. Rather common.

Image

? Anolis (chrysolepis) scypheus (yellow-tongued forest anole)
Following a 2010 ICZN ruling, the name Anolis chrysolepis has priority over A. nitens. Second picture by Peter.

Image
Image
Image

Anolis (chrysolepis) tandai (blue-throated anole)
Following a 2010 ICZN ruling, the name Anolis chrysolepis has priority over A. nitens.

Image
Image

Anolis ortonii (Amazon bark anole)

Image

Anolis trachyderma (common forest anole)
Seemed to be the most common species.

Image
Image
Image

Anolis transversalis (banded tree anole)
Quite large and attractive, but turns brown when disturbed. Beautiful blue iris.

Image

Anolis sp.
Below most likely animals that are either trachyderma or fuscoauratus.

Image
Image
Image
Image
Image

Tropiduridae

Stenocercus fimbriatus (western leaf lizard)
Not very rare, but very well camouflaged and fast. I had it staring at me for months from the cover of the Bartlett book, so it was a treat to see one in real life.

Image
Image

Plica plica (collared tree runner)
The most commonly seen of two species of tree runners. At night, much easier to approach.


Image
Image
Image

Plica umbra (olive tree runner)
We saw just one of these.

Image

Scincidae

Copeoglossum nigropunctatum (black-spotted skink)
Quite abundant along the edges of open spots, in piles of leaves in sunny spots, etc. Juveniles with a bright blue tail.

Image
Image

Teiidae

Ameiva ameiva (Amazon whiptail)
Regularly seen during the day in Santa Cruz camp, but quite shy. I took the animal in the second picture for a Kentropyx altamazonica, but was corrected by Dr. Laurie J. Vitt.

Image
Image

Dracaena guianensis (northern caiman lizard)
Peter spotted one swimming while kayaking at Madre Selva. He could approach it up to about 3m before it disappeared. Too bad… Naturally, Peter was severely punished afterwards.

Kentropyx altamazonica (cocha whiptail)
Seen more than once, but for some strange reason no picture. Still hoping to find one in Frank's photos, which will then be added to the report.

Kentropyx pelviceps (forest whiptail)
This otherwise swift guy was prepared to stick to his leaf for a second (daytime!).

Image

Tupinambis teguixin (golden tegu)
Usually observed as a huge black flash - taking off, never to return. Very shy. Dr. Laurie J. Vitt informed me that the animal in the second picture (from Madre Selva) seems to look more like Tupinambis longilineus. The first one is from Sabalillo but a little bit too far away for a 300mm.

Image
Image
running off with some fruit or meat from the kitchen - © Peter Engelen

Serpentes

Boidae

Corallus hortulanus (Amazon tree boa)
First picture show our first one, very high up at Sabalillo. It wasn’t until Madre Selva that we could catch one. After several nocturnal trips along the river’s edge by kayak, this became our most often seen snake (8 individuals). Unfortunately, all were similar looking.

Image
Image
Image
Image
Image

Epicrates cenchria (rainbow boa)
Strange things happen. This snake was found in a ditch in the Mazán harbour, during the crazy frenzy when Frank was brought to the hospital. Hard to get a satisfying picture that has the entire animal in the frame...

Image
Image
Image

Colubridae

? Atractus major (giant earth snake)
This was a nice surprise to me, as I expected the members of this genus all to be rather unattractively coloured.

Image



Atractus snethlageae (white-naped earth snake)
This snake was caught at night and bagged before anyone took a picture. Next morning, no snake in the bag anymore…

Chironius exoletus (common whipsnake)
For reasons beyong comprehension, a certain someone thought it was a good idea to pull down the tree with this snake in as fast as humanly possible. Not a good idea with a fast-moving snake, so yet another silly story of failure…

Image


Dendrophidion dendrophis (tawny forest racer)
I took just this in situ shot of this snake.

Image

Dipsas catesbyi (ornate snail-eating snake)
During our first night, before Peter found a true highlight serpent (see green and cat-eyed critter below), I had the honour to catch the trip’s first snake. Later on, we found two more of these.

Image
Image

Drepanoides anomalus (Amazon egg-eating snake)

Image

Drymoluber dichrous (common glossy racer)

Image

Helicops angulatus (banded Neotropical water snake)
Only one was found, which is less than we had expected.

Image

Imantodes cenchoa (blunt-headed tree snake)
Only two were found, which is also less than we had expected. Both were found during the same night.

Image
Image
Image

Liophis breviceps (tricolored swamp snake)

Image

Liophis reginae (common swamp snake)
This one nailed my finger pretty good (see the Santa Cruz non-herp pictures above). Some annoying swelling followed which laster for a couple of days; nothing too serious.

Image
Image
Image

Oxyrhopus vanidicus
Formerly considered part of (a.o.) O. melanogenys. Confusing this snake with a certain coral snake (see below) nearly killed Frank, yet I remember being pleased when I caught this colourful animal.

Image
Image

Pseudoboa coronata (Amazon scarlet snake)
I also liked this elegant and beautiful snake a lot, despite the fact that it was the worst snake to photograph for me so far. For this reason, I let someone with more solid nerves do the 'snake ikebana' (thanks, Frank!).

Image
Image

Xenopholis scalaris (flat-headed snake)

Image
Image

Elapidae

Micrurus hemprichii (orange-ringed coral snake)
So... this is NOT Oxyrhopus (melanogenys) vanidicus! An interesting read on the Reptile Database page of the species: "Etymology: Latin, meaning liar; used in allusion to the apparent mimicry of this species with the venomous coralsnake, Micrurus hemprichii.". Surely a beautiful coral snake, but nearly lethal for one of us. Frank’s condition was still unstable when I took these few rather lousy shots of an animal that scared us more than anything. Not a pleasant memory. First picture is in situ and was made by Peter.

Image
Image
Image
Image

Micrurus surinamensis (aquatic coral snake)
Took until Madre Selva and much longer than expected to find one of these. Given its beauty, well worth the wait. The first one was a big boy or girl, while I spotted a much smaller one in the small pond behind the kitchen afterwards.

Image
Image

Viperidae

Bothriopsis bilineata (striped forest pit viper)
A big highlight on our first night! After a snakeless hike, Peter spotted it right next to the cabin were Bobby and I were staying.

Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image

Bothrops atrox (South American or common lancehead, fer-de-lance)
Only three were seen. Frank brought in this larger one.

Image
Image
Image

Lachesis muta ((South American or Amazon) bushmaster, local name: ‘shushupe’)
Without much doubt, the main target, as well as the main highlight of the trip. Finding this snake was a very, VERY happy moment. We wanted to find it sooo much, but did not have high hopes. Nearly everyone told us that it is really rare to find one, and that it often takes people many trips over years or even decades. It wasn’t huge (1m40), but we didn’t mind. During the same hike, we actually also found an exuvium of much larger one (>2m).

Image
Image

Species list

A long, long, fantastic list comes with the countless pictures we were able to take. As indicated, not all species identifications are certain. For matters of species counting, I only considered animals which were with sufficient certainty not conspecific with any previously seen species. As such, the true number of observed species, especially when taking the frogs of the genus Pristimantis into account, will be slightly higher than what can be gathered from the list below.

Image

Trip evaluation aka pseudoscience

Some thoughts leapt to mind on how to tentatively evaluate our results. Just for fun. After all, I am an obsessive list-and-numbers kind of guy. I apologise already for the nerdy nature of what you are about to read (or skip). Note that the numbers I used might change slightly in view of progress in sorting out certain pending identifications, but I will most likely not redo the calculations, as they will only be slightly affected and I am a lazy person.

Here we go.

A point of reference can be found in the results of Matt Cage’s team in January 2013. Of course, we have to consider some differences between both trips, listed in the table below (USA = Matt’s team; EU = our trip).


Image


Additional factors include:
* all sorts of environmental variable (lunar phase, temperature, rainfall, ...)
* site differences & number of days per site
* individual searcher’s ‘talent’
* ...

But let’s, again just for fun, take a rough-and-dirty approach, by multiplying n° of days and n° of observers. This gives us an approximate estimate of search effort.

team USA = 11 * 20 = 220 person-days
team EU = 5 * 16 = 80 person-days

Hmmm... How should we understand the highly similar total species numbers, given the quite large difference in search effort?

Impact of number of sites & site differences ?
Admittedly, team EU did find a number of species (= 14) only at Sabalillo. However, all of these can also be found at both other sites. As far as the sites have been (unequally) investigated, species occurring at only 1 or 2 of the sites seems low. So, would a similar number of additional species have popped up, if our time at Sabalillo would have been spent at one or both the other sites? Nobody knows... Yet, given the (in comparison with Europe and the USA) low “specimens/species” ratio (which I will re-address in a way below), I think the answer is “probably yes”.

Impact of season ?
As certain canopy-dwelling frog species are known to be more obscure outside their breeding season, I expected for us to find less anuran species than the USA team. This proved to be wrong, as both trips yielded very similar numbers and percentages of amphibians (resp. USA 68 vs. EU 74, USA 54% vs. 59% EU). In contrast, we found less snake species, but I will get to that later. Overall, I get the impression seasonal differences have limited impact. Maybe this becomes less true when you move further away from the Equator (cf. Duellman, 2005).

Team ?
It has to be stressed that Edwin, our herping guide, was extremely good at finding and catching animals. Of course, we also did what we could, and Edwin would always stress that our results are a true team effort, but he really was a unique and extremely valuable asset. Also, among ourselves, not everyone is and was as tenacious.


No real answer to be found...? Let's look at some other details.

Composition differences
I will compare the species composition of both trips in two ways.

Higher taxon composition

Let’s compare percentages of amphibians, snakes, lizards, and other reptiles.


Image


As you can see, the portion of snakes was lower in our trip. An infinite list of possible explanations could be given. An often cited one might be lunar phase, as we did have a full moon during the trip, but who knows?

Species composition

A crude but useful way to calculate an indicator value for the similarity in both species lists is this (which I adapted from a formula for comparing biogeographical areas in Duellman, 2005):

2 * O / ( USA + EU )

with O = number of species in both lists; USA = number of species in USA list; Europe = number of species in Europe list.

This yields a value between 0 and 1, with 0 being no overlap and 1 being complete overlap of the lists.

In this case:

2 * 91 / ( 126 + 125 ) = 0,73

Thus, the overlap is considerable, but not overwhelming.

Now let’s repeat this for snakes only.

2 * 12 / ( 21 + 27 ) = 0,5

This clearly shows a much smaller overlap.


Enough with the comparisons now! Let's dig some more into our own trip data.

Number of specimens per species

I mentioned it already: the “specimens/species” ratio is (very) low.

Some examples:
* Of 44% of the anuran species, we only found a single animal. For snakes, this was even 68%.
* Only one snake species was found more than three times (Corallus hortulanus, n= 8). No snake species was found 10 times or more.

However, lizards seem to be a clear exception.


Image


Species discovery rate

The fantastic book by Duellman (2005) on the herpetofauna of Cuzco Amazónico offers some more scientific reference on the subject. 141 of 152 known species were found in 992 days of search effort. More interestingly, a graph shows the cumulative number of anurans, lizards and snake species with increasing search effort, the latter expressed as total search time. A major difference with my considerations is of course that this is a single site, but let’s (again) ignore site effects.


Image
the graph from the fantastic Duellman (2005) book


It becomes obvious that more effort is needed to ‘complete’ the snake species list in contrast to that needed for those of both anurans and lizards. Also, while the number of anuran and lizard species heads more or less towards a plateau after a certain amount of search effort, this plateau did not seem obvious (yet) for the snakes.

I tried to make the same graph from our results. Of course, the 100% species list is not available, thus merely a 'guestimate' based on available information. Yet, at least the shape (slope) of the curves tells us something.



Image


Note that the scale range along 'our' X-axis covers only a small portion at the left-hand side of the Duellman (2005) graph, and -again- that ours relates to three different sites, and not just one.

To my pleasant surprise, both graphs show some rather obvious similarities. During the first days, the number of observed lizard species seems to build up very quickly, while frog species accumulate more gradually. The first couple of snake species seem to come in quickly too, but then things slow down. If you look at the most left section of the Duellman graph, the fact that our final percentage of amphibian species is lower than that of lizard species also seems to fit, as it is close to the point where the lizard and frog graphs intersect in Duellman's graph (albeit Duellman considered anurans instead of amphibians, excluding only few species, so no big deal). Now comes the most interesting observation. While at 11-12 person-weeks (= our end point) the slope of lizard species in Duellman's graph is quite steep (= a lot of change within a small range of added search effort), overall percentages of species for all three subsets of species are quite similar. In conclusion, both graphs are strikingly similar. The only real dissimilarity might be the lag of snake species accumulation in our graph from about 4 to 7 person-weeks.

A final word on snakes

As expected, finding snakes was rather hard. Two weeks in Arizona brought us 96 live and 44 DOR snakes. We achieved similar results in Europe (e.g. 91 excluding the very abundant natricid species in Montenegro 2008. As such, it seems odd to find ‘only’ 38 snakes over 16 days in such a fantastic ecosystem. However, this seems to be in line with observations by other people – Edwin told us 2 snakes per night may be some sort of average. Our best night was one where we found 6 (including the amazing ‘shushupe’).

Acknowledgements

For information prior to the trip: Matt Cage, Devon Graham, Mike Pingleton.
For their help in the field and much more: our guides Edwin and Luis, and my three travel companions.
For their help identifying animals after the trip: Dr. William E. Duellman, Luis Alberto Giussepe Gagliardi Urrutia, Dr. Laurie J. Vitt.

References

Bartlett RD, Bartlett P (2003) Reptiles and Amphibians of the Amazon: An Ecotourist's Guide.

Dixon JR, Soini P (1986) The Reptiles of the Upper Amazon Basin, Iquitos Region, Peru.

Duellman WE (2005) Cusco Amazónico: The Lives of Amphibians and Reptiles in an Amazonian Rainforest.

Duellman WE, Mendelson JR III (1995) Amphibians and reptiles from northern Departamento Loreto, Peru: taxonomy and biogeography. The University of Kansas Science Bulletin 55(10): 329-376.

Elmer KR, Cannatella DC (2008) Three new species of leaflitter frogs from the upper Amazon forests: cryptic diversity within Pristimantis “ockendeni” (Anura: Strabomantidae) in Ecuador. Zootaxa 1784: 11-38.

Elmer KR, Dávila JA, Lougheed SC (2007) Cryptic diversity and deep divergence in an upper Amazonian leaflitter frog, Eleutherodactylus ockendeni. BMC Evolutionary Biology 2007(7): 247.

Lehr E, Moravec J, Gagliardi Urrutia, LAG (2010) A new species of Pristimantis (Anura: Strabomantidae) from the Amazonian lowlands of northern Peru. Salamandra 46(4): 197-203.

Moravec J, Lehr E, Perez Peña, PE, Jairo Lopez J, Gagliardi Urrutia G, Arista Tuanama I (2010) A new green, arboreal species of Pristimantis (Anura: Strabomantidae) from Amazonian Peru. Vertebrate Zoology 60(3): 225-232.

Müller L (1914) On a new species of the genus Pipa from northern Brazil. Annals and Magazine of Natural History 14: 102.

Rodríguez LO, Duellman WE (1994) Guide to the frogs of the Iquitos region, Amazonian Peru.

Ron SR, Venegas PJ, Toral E, Read M, Ortiz DA, Manzano AL (2012) Systematics of the Osteocephalus buckleyi species complex (Anura, Hylidae) from Ecuador and Peru. ZooKeys 229: 1–52.
User avatar
Ribbit
Posts: 601
Joined: June 12th, 2010, 10:28 am
Location: Monterey Peninsula, CA
Contact:

Re: Amazonia (Peru) July 2013 – (2) amphibians & reptiles!

Post by Ribbit »

This was a complete delight to read and view. So many familiar animals, and yet so many unfamiliar ones too! Of course, your photographs are without exception outstanding. You guys clearly came up with a very impressive number of species, esp. with such a smaller number of participants than we had in January.

A couple of comments on your "pseudoscience" at the end: There was definitely a large amount of variation in forest-time/person in our larger group. Some people spent most of their available time in the forest, and others went into the forest far less often, spending most of their time around camp instead. I would guess that your average forest-time/person was far higher than ours. (No doubt your average herp-finding-ability/person was also higher than ours.)

I think Matt and/or Mike has another data set from an earlier trip. It might be interesting to throw that into the statistical mix and see if anything interesting pops up.
Jeroen Speybroeck wrote:I feel that there is nothing quite like a (living) animal that looks like it has been run over more than once.
You need to be careful with your humor. This almost made me spurt out my drink all over the floor.
Jeroen Speybroeck wrote:Peter spotted one swimming while kayaking at Madre Selva. He could approach it up to about 3m before it disappeared. Too bad… Naturally, Peter was severely punished afterwards.
Naturally. My drink had its second near-floor experience after I read this.

What made you lean towards Osteocephalus cf. cabrerai rather than Ecnomiohyla tuberculosa? That frog seems to have a different gestalt than the O. cabrerai that we saw, but of course there can be a lot of variability within each species.

Thank you so much for taking the time to put together your comprehensive and extremely enjoyable posts!

John
User avatar
CCarille
Posts: 380
Joined: January 8th, 2011, 5:51 am
Location: NY

Re: Amazonia (Peru) July 2013 – (2) amphibians & reptiles!

Post by CCarille »

An exciting read through! Once again spurring my desire to return to the Amazon even more!

Love the H. helioi - fantastic find! I couldn't help but smile at the video of the R. ventrimaculata, just something mesmerizing about toxic little amphibians. The palm shot with the 4 Monkey frogs is incredible!

Good shot of the bridled gecko as well, they are definitely one of my favorite Amazon species. Love the Dipsas (just something about snail-eating that is so unique and interesting) and the X. scalaris shots are awesome - love the decaying "fall type" leaf as the background!

Great post Jeroen! A ridiculous amount of species in one trip. It all reads as a very thorough trip report, replete with graphs and data possibly supporting a conclusion that the EU performed better at herp finding? haha
User avatar
MattSullivan
Posts: 419
Joined: June 7th, 2010, 2:07 pm
Location: New Jersey

Re: Amazonia (Peru) July 2013 – (2) amphibians & reptiles!

Post by MattSullivan »

awesome. Peru is on my list now, especially thanks to all those tree frogs. the mata mata is great too, congrats on the bushmaster
User avatar
JakeScott
Posts: 690
Joined: June 7th, 2010, 5:26 pm
Location: Gainesville, FL
Contact:

Re: Amazonia (Peru) July 2013 – (2) amphibians & reptiles!

Post by JakeScott »

So much good stuff. My trip this past January was much less exciting as far as snake bites go. All we got was a mild bite from a Liophis, that only resulted in hand swelling, and no emergency, and we are all thankful for that. Great photos and interesting read.

-Jake
User avatar
Mike VanValen
Posts: 2074
Joined: June 7th, 2010, 4:41 pm
Location: Connecticut
Contact:

Re: Amazonia (Peru) July 2013 – (2) amphibians & reptiles!

Post by Mike VanValen »

This is an article waiting to happen. I always appreciate the inclusion of crocodilians and turtles, but adding in the Pipa sp. - my absolute favorite anuran genus - is outstanding! That would definitely be a true highlight for me.

The rainbow boa is classic, as is the hefty aquatic coralsnake. Great job!
User avatar
Jeroen Speybroeck
Posts: 826
Joined: June 29th, 2011, 1:56 am
Location: Belgium
Contact:

Re: Amazonia (Peru) July 2013 – (2) amphibians & reptiles!

Post by Jeroen Speybroeck »

Many thanks for your replies!
Ribbit wrote:I would guess that your average forest-time/person was far higher than ours. (No doubt your average herp-finding-ability/person was also higher than ours.)
Although most of us (except one tenacious Frenchman who had survived some sort of animal bite...) became increasingly lethargic during daytime as the trip progressed, for a less “pseudo” view at things, these factors should of course be considered more precisely, you're absolutely right.
Ribbit wrote:I think Matt and/or Mike has another data set from an earlier trip. It might be interesting to throw that into the statistical mix and see if anything interesting pops up.
Would be nice!
Ribbit wrote:What made you lean towards Osteocephalus cf. cabrerai rather than Ecnomiohyla tuberculosa?
A comment by Mr. Luis Alberto Giussepe Gagliardi Urrutia. However, you are right!

“Dear Jeroen:
(...)
I was most enchanted by your photo of Ecnomiahyla tuberculosa. Amongst the more than 2m000 images we have, that species if missing. I wonder if you might send me a high-resolution jpeg, together with locality and name of photographer, that we might add to the KU Digital Archives (KDA), an open access collection.

Best regards,

Bill

William E. Duellman
Curator Emeritus
Division of Herpetology
Biodiversity Institute
University of Kansas
1345 Jayhawk Blvd.
Lawrence, Kansas, USA 66045
(...)”


After this, I expressed my doubt and today this came in.

“Dear Jeroen:

I have examined the type of O. cabrerai; your image is of E. tuberculosa. I do not know of images of that species, other than yours. I look forward to the image.

Best wishes,

Bill”


Case closed!

Hopefully, he’ll find some time to check the other animals too.
CCarille wrote:Love the H. helioi - fantastic find!
One for your book, perhaps? ;)
CCarille wrote:graphs and data possibly supporting a conclusion that the EU performed better at herp finding? haha
At least, I hope my toying with numbers did not come across as provocative, because this is merely what popped up when I looked into answering my questions about species discovery rates à la Duellman.
User avatar
Jeroen Speybroeck
Posts: 826
Joined: June 29th, 2011, 1:56 am
Location: Belgium
Contact:

Re: Amazonia (Peru) July 2013 – (2) amphibians & reptiles!

Post by Jeroen Speybroeck »

Apart from the Ecnomiohyla correction, I had a better look at what I labelled above as Pristimantis sp.

The first one is most likely Pristimantis diadematus
Image

The two other ones, I mislabelled, as they are in fact leptodactylids. As fate would have it, both seem to be additions to the species list :D

Pseudopaludicola ?ceratophyes (pygmy eyelashed frog, Leticia swamp frog)
Hard to find online pictures for comparison, but I think I got it about right...

Image
Image

Vanzolinius discodactylus (dark-blotched whistling frog)
Wrongly considered "probably nothing new", so only this lousy picture.

Image
User avatar
Jeroen Speybroeck
Posts: 826
Joined: June 29th, 2011, 1:56 am
Location: Belgium
Contact:

Re: Amazonia (Peru) July 2013 – (2) amphibians & reptiles!

Post by Jeroen Speybroeck »

BTW 1, on the Wikipedia page of Ecnomiohyla tuberculosa, there's a marvelous drawing from the original description (Boulenger, 1882).

BTW 2, I will not edit my initial post all the time, but I will implement all corrections asap in the report on my website.

BTW 3, in the (growing) list of references in that website report, you may now find links to the manuscripts themselves. Just follow the link above and scroll all the way down.
Matt Cage
Posts: 128
Joined: June 7th, 2010, 1:04 pm
Location: Denver, CO

Re: Amazonia (Peru) July 2013 – (2) amphibians & reptiles!

Post by Matt Cage »

Jeroen

All I can say is WOW. You did an incredible job of finding and photographing these critters. Great work!

I especially liked the following:
Atelopus, great that you got to find those! Only at MS?

Ecnomiohyla? Really? That's outstanding!

Hemiphractus, Outstanding!!!! And something that I have not seen there! Any chance you can PM me the details of where at SC.

Phyllomedusa bicolor, glad you found many of them, in trips past, we would not find many. That has all changed in the past couple of years! They are simply outstanding.

Phyllomedusa vaillanti, I have had some do the same thing yours did. They look dead for the day, but they will come back to life at night. I do my best to not even pull them out of the forest.

Pipa pipa, great job on those, I am usually lucky to see one per trip! Catching them in the muddy streams can be tough.

Osteocephalus cabrarai, that is a very nice one. They usually show up every trip, but this is a spectacular one!

Caught the Chelus right at MS? That is great! I have seen them there, usually in too deep of water to make the catch! Congrats!

Tupinambis teguixin, Those things are tough to photo, in fact the only photos that I have are bad ones except for a single photo of a juvenile I got this year before it went under water! Nice shots!

Corallus, too bad you did not see the other color phases. We got a little more diversity this year then you did. The orange ones are spectacular.

Epicrates, We only got one this year too (Jake), which was low. We usually get 3-4 per trip. At least you got a nice one!

Chironius exoletus, the one way up in a tree, I have a photo of one from this year that looked almost exactly the same. It was probably 30 feet up a tree and the snake was at least 8 feet long. We had the same result you did!

Only one Imantodes cenchoa? Wow, we saw (I’m guessing) 15 of them.

Love the Xenopholis, nice find! I would love the details on this as well!

Also, love the hemprichii. Sorry that happened to Frank, but that is one heck of a find!

B. bilineata, Gorgeous! Took me 4 trips to find one! Incredible!

And the Bushmaster…………………

I can get you some numbers from previous trips. On our last trip, we had a very diverse group of people. Some were not really herpers, more naturalists. Anytime you get over 100 species is a good trip in my book. Obviously, things were moving when you were there!

Matt
User avatar
Rothdigga
Posts: 405
Joined: November 25th, 2010, 2:00 pm
Location: Long Beach, CA
Contact:

Re: Amazonia (Peru) July 2013 – (2) amphibians & reptiles!

Post by Rothdigga »

MattSullivan wrote:awesome. Peru is on my list now, especially thanks to all those tree frogs. the mata mata is great too, congrats on the bushmaster
Matt,
If amphibs are what you're looking for, you literally can not go wrong with the Peruvian Rainforest. It's impossible to have a night where you don't see so many species your head spins. It's insane and hard to comprehend.

Awesome post again Jeroen. Such great narrative along with compelling photos. Thanks for taking the time to do all this.
User avatar
Jeroen Speybroeck
Posts: 826
Joined: June 29th, 2011, 1:56 am
Location: Belgium
Contact:

Re: Amazonia (Peru) July 2013 – (2) amphibians & reptiles!

Post by Jeroen Speybroeck »

Thanks, guys!
Matt Cage wrote:Atelopus, great that you got to find those! Only at MS?
Yes, and just one. We did check a known Atelopus area at Sabalillo (different species, though), but no luck.
Matt Cage wrote:Ecnomiohyla? Really? That's outstanding!
Maybe you’ll have to hit Sabalillo next time too ;-). Vanzolinius, Pseudopaludicola (during the day) and the Pipa’s (at nights) were found in the same varzea area. Looked like anaconda heaven to me, but it wasn't meant to be... :cry:
Matt Cage wrote:Osteocephalus cabrarai, that is a very nice one. They usually show up every trip, but this is a spectacular one!
Well, no, that turned out to be Ecnomiohyla.
Matt Cage wrote:Epicrates, (…) We usually get 3-4 per trip.
Only one Imantodes cenchoa? Wow, we saw (I’m guessing) 15 of them.
Well, only 2 Imantodes, both on the same night. It’s true that we expected to find quite a lot more of them (same for surinamensis, Helicops, …). I wonder how the difference in group size might affect the results in terms of number of specimens vs. number of species? E.g., how many individual snakes and snake species did you find on your trips? Could be interesting to compare that ratio...
Matt Cage wrote:Hemiphractus, Outstanding!!!! And something that I have not seen there! Any chance you can PM me the details of where at SC.
Love the Xenopholis, nice find! I would love the details on this as well!
Of course! Unfortunately, I don't have GPS coordinates for those, but I’ll fill you in as good as I can – remember that it all started for me with your great posts!!!
Matt Cage wrote:Also, love the hemprichii. Sorry that happened to Frank, but that is one heck of a find!

Unfortunately and much to our dislike, we learned that it was killed by local people afterwards…
Matt Cage wrote:On our last trip, we had a very diverse group of people. Some were not really herpers, more naturalists.

I’ll edit it in the text on my site to be fair. Would be fun (that word again…) to be able to have a look at output of your other trips.
Matt Cage wrote:Anytime you get over 100 species is a good trip in my book.
Agreed! :mrgreen:
Matt Cage wrote:Obviously, things were moving when you were there!
I wonder if that’s a ‘normal’ July thing. If so, the seasonality sure seems to affect the observations far less than further south, cf. Duellman (2005). For sure, there was more amphibian activity than in July in Madre de Dios. Weird how the nocturnal sounds (frogs and other animals) seemingly may change completely from one night to the next. Always a great soundtrack to fall asleep too...
User avatar
Jeroen Speybroeck
Posts: 826
Joined: June 29th, 2011, 1:56 am
Location: Belgium
Contact:

Re: Amazonia (Peru) July 2013 – (2) amphibians & reptiles!

Post by Jeroen Speybroeck »

Another ID question...

Can anyone confirm these are all Drepanoides anomalus? Or is one of them a juvenile Clelia clelia after all?

Image

Image
© Frank Deschandol

Image
© Frank Deschandol
User avatar
Ribbit
Posts: 601
Joined: June 12th, 2010, 10:28 am
Location: Monterey Peninsula, CA
Contact:

Re: Amazonia (Peru) July 2013 – (2) amphibians & reptiles!

Post by Ribbit »

Yow, those species sure do look similar. From what I've dug up (which I'm sure you have also), the best way to tell them apart would be to count the dorsal scale rows; 15 for Drepanoides anomalous and 17 or 19 for Clelia clelia. Maybe you can find a well-focused portion of a photo of each snake that allows you to at least count up to the vertebral row? I think I can count 8 scales up to and including the vertebral row on your first and second photos, so those seem to be Drepanoides, but the third photo being directly overhead doesn't let me see the lowest dorsal scale clearly.

Savage's big Costa Rica book has a figure that shows the white band on juvenile Clelia always starting just behind the eyes, and with a nice straight border. This is used to help distinguish Clelia from some Costa Rica lookalike. So that would imply that your third photo is not Clelia. However, maybe the pattern in Peru doesn't always meet Savage's description of the pattern in Costa Rica.

Gorgeous snakes, in any case!

John
Matt Cage
Posts: 128
Joined: June 7th, 2010, 1:04 pm
Location: Denver, CO

Re: Amazonia (Peru) July 2013 – (2) amphibians & reptiles!

Post by Matt Cage »

As John said, the best way to tell them apart is the 15 scale rows. I have found juvenile Clelia in the Amazon and they do have the same colors, and a similar look, but the Clelia clelia of the region clearly have 19 scale rows. Here is two from Madre Selva, Loreto, Peru:

Image

Image

From what I can see, yours all appear to be Drepanoides. I'll have to do some searching for a juvenile Clelia photo.

Matt
User avatar
Jeroen Speybroeck
Posts: 826
Joined: June 29th, 2011, 1:56 am
Location: Belgium
Contact:

Re: Amazonia (Peru) July 2013 – (2) amphibians & reptiles!

Post by Jeroen Speybroeck »

Thanks, guys! I omitted to do the scale count on that last one, hence the question. I've found "countable pictures" for all 3 now, and you are both absolutely right - 3x Drepanoides.
dickbartlett
Posts: 72
Joined: June 25th, 2010, 11:32 am

Re: Amazonia (Peru) July 2013 – (2) amphibians & reptiles!

Post by dickbartlett »

Beautiful post Jeroen. I just made mention of the tegu question on our MT Amazon Expeditions website. I note you mention Pseudopaludicola. Did you, by chance, get a photo of this taxon? Thanx for sharing your experiences. Best/dick
User avatar
Jeroen Speybroeck
Posts: 826
Joined: June 29th, 2011, 1:56 am
Location: Belgium
Contact:

Re: Amazonia (Peru) July 2013 – (2) amphibians & reptiles!

Post by Jeroen Speybroeck »

Thank you very much for the appreciation, Dick, I am honored!

Also, I would love to hear your thoughts on some of the frog enigmas ;) . I sent you an e-mail, actually, but it might have got lost in cyberspace.
dickbartlett wrote:I just made mention of the tegu question on our MT Amazon Expeditions website.
How is that? Is there some sort of room for discussion on the website?
dickbartlett wrote:I note you mention Pseudopaludicola. Did you, by chance, get a photo of this taxon? Thanx for sharing your experiences.
I wouldn't bet my life on it, and it seems to be missing the eye-lashes somehow, but imho it looked more like some of its congenerics, as found online (pictures), than like anything else. The habitat seemed to fit also nicely.
Here it is =>
------------
Pseudopaludicola ?ceratophyes (pygmy eyelashed frog, Leticia swamp frog)
Hard to find online pictures for comparison, but I think I got it about right...
Image
Image
------------

On my website, I manage a version of the report that has asap implementation of corrections, as I discover them.
=> http://www.hylawerkgroep.be/jeroen/index.php?id=69
User avatar
Jeroen Speybroeck
Posts: 826
Joined: June 29th, 2011, 1:56 am
Location: Belgium
Contact:

Re: Amazonia (Peru) July 2013 – (2) amphibians & reptiles!

Post by Jeroen Speybroeck »

Jeroen Speybroeck wrote:
dickbartlett wrote:I just made mention of the tegu question on our MT Amazon Expeditions website.
How is that? Is there some sort of room for discussion on the website?
Nevermind, I now figured out it's on Facebook. Maybe I ought to join FB after all :mrgreen: :oops:
User avatar
Ribbit
Posts: 601
Joined: June 12th, 2010, 10:28 am
Location: Monterey Peninsula, CA
Contact:

Re: Amazonia (Peru) July 2013 – (2) amphibians & reptiles!

Post by Ribbit »

Matt convinced me to join Facebook so I could participate in post-Peru follow up discussions. I mostly don't regret it.

John
dickbartlett
Posts: 72
Joined: June 25th, 2010, 11:32 am

Re: Amazonia (Peru) July 2013 – (2) amphibians & reptiles!

Post by dickbartlett »

Thank you for your reply Jeroen.
Sadly I am not able to identify the frog in question. It seems to most closely approach Vanzolinius discodactylus.
It is not Pseudopaludicola. The latter has a much smoother dorsal skin and does not have the ridges present on your find. It is also of a grayer color, and as you noted, has conical horns on the eyelid. The only one I ever saw was on a preserve (Paucarillo) which has now begun to allow logging. That single one I stepped on while hiking across a muddy salt lick. I have looked on several occasions, in the place where the one was seen and in similar habitats elsewhere but have not found another.
BTW, I did not get the first correspondence you addressed to me.
Kind regards/dick
User avatar
Jeroen Speybroeck
Posts: 826
Joined: June 29th, 2011, 1:56 am
Location: Belgium
Contact:

Re: Amazonia (Peru) July 2013 – (2) amphibians & reptiles!

Post by Jeroen Speybroeck »

dickbartlett wrote:Sadly I am not able to identify the frog in question. It seems to most closely approach Vanzolinius discodactylus.
Many thanks, Dick. I seem to have been sloppy on this one. I now translated the diagnosis of Rivero & Serna (1984) and you are obviously right. I have made the correction on my web page. We also found L. discodactylus on the same spot. I underestimated the variability in skin texture of the latter, and of course those eye lashes have to be present to be P. ceratophyes.

Would you perhaps be able to share a picture of that Pseudopaludicola?
dickbartlett wrote:BTW, I did not get the first correspondence you addressed to me.
OK, I will send you a PM through this forum.

((( The genus Vanzolinius has been placed in synonymy with Leptodactylus, in order to maintain monophyly of the latter (de Sá et al., 2005). )))
User avatar
moloch
Posts: 561
Joined: June 16th, 2010, 1:26 pm

Re: Amazonia (Peru) July 2013 – (2) amphibians & reptiles!

Post by moloch »

Jeroen,

What a fantastic report! Wow, you certainly found so many exciting animals. Rainbow Boa, Bushmaster, those incredible frogs and on and on! I really enjoyed this post and enjoying the huge variety of photos.

Regards,
David
User avatar
Jeroen Speybroeck
Posts: 826
Joined: June 29th, 2011, 1:56 am
Location: Belgium
Contact:

Re: Amazonia (Peru) July 2013 – (2) amphibians & reptiles!

Post by Jeroen Speybroeck »

Thanks, David! My desire to see that critter in your avatar picture becomes more dominant ;)
Jeroen Speybroeck wrote:
dickbartlett wrote:BTW, I did not get the first correspondence you addressed to me.
OK, I will send you a PM through this forum.
PM sent!
User avatar
Jeroen Speybroeck
Posts: 826
Joined: June 29th, 2011, 1:56 am
Location: Belgium
Contact:

Re: Amazonia (Peru) July 2013 – (2) amphibians & reptiles!

Post by Jeroen Speybroeck »

This impressive revision of the Ranitomeya genus shows that some of my IDs of poison frogs are wrong.
http://www.dendrobates.org/articles/Bro ... tomeya.pdf

I got in touch with the 2 first authors of the paper who also run this excellent website =>
http://www.dendrobates.org

What I learned might also alter the ideas of other FHF members who've been to the same place.

* I mixed up the identifications of Ameerega hahneli and Allobates femoralis, as femoralis has more black on the ventral surface as well as a white stripe coming halfway up the side of the belly.
* Re-investigation of the holotype specimen of R. ventrimaculata showed that it is actually what has been called R. duellmani for a while now. Since the former name is older, it has priority, so the red-lined frog has to be called ventrimaculata and the name duellmani is a junior synonym.
* Furthermore, a large part of what has been considered ventrimaculata is now shown to belong to (at least?) R. variabilis and/or R. amazonica. Hence, basically the only thing that's left within ventrimaculata is the former duellmani.
* A morph of R. amazonica mimics R. reticulata.

Conclusions:

=> Allobates femoralis has more black on the ventral surface as well as a white stripe coming halfway up the side of the belly, not Ameerega hahneli.

=> What I called reticulata, is Ranitomeya amazonica).
Image

=> What I called duellmani, is Ranitomeya uakarii. (a mistake, aside from the "*"'s above).
Image

=> What I called ventrimaculata, is Ranitomeya amazonica or variabilis.
Image

As the last one was found less than a mile away from the red-headed animal, I would guess that it is unlikely that both are amazonica, but what do I know :crazyeyes: :crazyeyes: :crazyeyes:

I'm not going to pretend I've got the hang of it now.
User avatar
Roki
Posts: 199
Joined: January 23rd, 2012, 10:08 am
Location: Salt Lake City, Utah

Re: Amazonia (Peru) July 2013 – (2) amphibians & reptiles!

Post by Roki »

Awesome post. I enjoyed it very much. Hoping to someday make it down there. The place looks amazing.
Thanks,
Roki
User avatar
Antonsrkn
Posts: 971
Joined: June 10th, 2010, 2:38 pm
Contact:

Re: Amazonia (Peru) July 2013 – (2) amphibians & reptiles!

Post by Antonsrkn »

Fantastic post, your finds are almost as impressive as the fact that you have IDs for your Pristimantis species! I tried to ID a bunch that I found in Ecuador and it was a absolute nightmare, despite the fact that I only had 4 species at most, I couldn't tell which ones were which; all different colors, sizes, patterns, textures and I'm still not 100% convinced they weren't all the same species.
User avatar
Jeroen Speybroeck
Posts: 826
Joined: June 29th, 2011, 1:56 am
Location: Belgium
Contact:

Re: Amazonia (Peru) July 2013 – (2) amphibians & reptiles!

Post by Jeroen Speybroeck »

Thanks!
Antonsrkn wrote:you have IDs for your Pristimantis species!
Well, I have to admit the multiple question marks are there for a reason ;)
Although some are most likely correct, I'm still waiting on some confirmation, while some will most likely never be 100% confirmed.
User avatar
Jeroen Speybroeck
Posts: 826
Joined: June 29th, 2011, 1:56 am
Location: Belgium
Contact:

Re: Amazonia (Peru) July 2013 – (2) amphibians & reptiles!

Post by Jeroen Speybroeck »

I am shamelessly bumping my own post to advertise a fantastic book, related to herping in this part of the world. For those of you who don't know it yet, don't hesitate. It's not only full of great field stories, but also has a nice personal story.

"In search of the golden frog", by M. Crump, 2000
http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/boo ... 14117.html

In the mean time, the errors in my OP have been largely corrected in my website report.
http://www.hylawerkgroep.be/jeroen/index.php?id=69
User avatar
Hans Breuer (twoton)
Posts: 3230
Joined: June 8th, 2010, 3:19 am
Location: Kuching, Sarawak (Borneo)
Contact:

Re: Amazonia (Peru) July 2013 – (2) amphibians & reptiles!

Post by Hans Breuer (twoton) »

This must be the world's first dissertation originally conceived as a herping post :-) Thanks for all of it!
Gekkotan
Posts: 26
Joined: May 6th, 2011, 6:18 am

Re: Amazonia (Peru) July 2013 – (2) amphibians & reptiles!

Post by Gekkotan »

Nice! A little bit old topic, but I would like to ask where did you find the Helicops? Inside water I believe, but in river, stream or stagnant pool water? How did it behaves when you aproaches next to it? thanks
User avatar
Jeroen Speybroeck
Posts: 826
Joined: June 29th, 2011, 1:56 am
Location: Belgium
Contact:

Re: Amazonia (Peru) July 2013 – (2) amphibians & reptiles!

Post by Jeroen Speybroeck »

Gekkotan wrote:Nice! A little bit old topic, but I would like to ask where did you find the Helicops? Inside water I believe, but in river, stream or stagnant pool water? How did it behaves when you aproaches next to it? thanks
It was found in a shallow puddle filled with tadpoles, not too far away from a river bank. As juveniles probably can pop up pretty much anywhere, this probably doesn't tell you all that much. It was rather jumpy when it got grabbed. It's one of the snake species we encountered in lower numbers than we expected (adding up to a perhaps in general lower than expected snake abundance).
Gekkotan
Posts: 26
Joined: May 6th, 2011, 6:18 am

Re: Amazonia (Peru) July 2013 – (2) amphibians & reptiles!

Post by Gekkotan »

Thanks!
User avatar
krisbell
Posts: 220
Joined: September 12th, 2010, 2:20 pm
Location: Jersey, UK
Contact:

Re: Amazonia (Peru) July 2013 – (2) amphibians & reptiles!

Post by krisbell »

Epic post Jeroen, thank you for sharing – some unbelievable amphibians I never knew existed. Interestingly, despite the fact I have seen almost none of the species (or even genus’) pictured here, I can identify convergent traits in so many of them with animals from regions I am more familiar with (Europe, Australia, Asia, N. America).
Post Reply