• Once thought extinct, bizarre horned frog reappears in Ecuador

    This strange frog, which incubates eggs on its back, disappeared for more than a decade before being rediscovered. Unseen for more than a decade, the enigmatic and...
    National Geographic


  • The critical need of museum collections

    We have entered a new epoch – the Anthropocene – in which human activities play a dominant role in governing Earth processes. Well-curated museum collections offer...
    AmphibiaWeb


  • The reproductive biology of the Myristica Swamp tree frog

    Described in 2013, Mercurana myristicapalustris is a rare frog species that has a limited range, inhabiting the once-widespread evergreen Myristica swamp forests...
    AmphibiaWeb


  • Especie nueva (soltera) de cutín

    En los Andes del Ecuador, La Reserva Las Gralarias es una de las localidades mejor estudiada en cuanto a su batrachofauna. Sin embargo, como se espera en cualquier comunidad, algunas especies son raras y, por...
    Zootaxa


  • An interaction between climate change and infectious disease drove widespread amphibian declines

    Climate change might drive species declines by altering species interactions, such as host–parasite interactions. However, few studies...
    Global Change Biology


  • Haiti’s amphibians threatened by nearly complete loss of primary forest

    Haiti has experienced rapid deforestation. A new report in PNAS (Hedges et al. 2018) finds that forest cover was reduced to 4.4% in 1988...
    AmphibiaWeb


  • Larval salamanders are as effective at short-term mosquito predation as mosquitofish

    As a disease vector, it is important to control mosquito populations. However, biological control with introduced mosquitofish (Gambusia...
    AmphibiaWeb


  • Evolutionary melting pots and reproductive isolation

    Ring species, complexes of populations that differentiate genetically around a natural barrier, should be relatively common based on the large array of natural...
    AmphibiaWeb


  • Plan de hábitat de anfibios, en riesgo por vandalismo

    La CGA analiza la posibilidad de reubicar una de las pozas e intervendrá en las otras nueve para garantizar la continuidad del proyecto ecológico. El hábitat de...
    El Tiempo


  • Bogotá: ranas en peligro de extinción que iban a ser traficadas a Alemania

    Algunas de las más de 200 ranas murieron por la brutalidad con las que fueron empacadas. Les rompieron los dedos porque no cabían en el empaque. En las...
    RCN


  • Bullfrog facilitates pathogen invasion

    Invasive species can harm native ecosystems by providing a pathway for pathogen invasion. For amphibians, the most devastating pathogen is the chytridiomycete fungus Batrachochytrium...
    AmphibiaWeb


  • Uncovering hidden diversity in glass frogs

    The glassfrog Centrolene buckleyi has been recognized as a species complex. Herein, using coalescence-based species delimitation methods, we evaluate the specific diversity...
    PeerJ


  • Newly discovered population of Bumpy Glassfrog

    Since 2011, the Bumpy Glassfrog, Centrolene heloderma (Duellman, 1981) was known only from a single location in the Mindo region of Ecuador. We report a newly...
    Check List


  • Eco‐evolutionary rescue promotes host–pathogen coexistence

    The die-offs observed in the amphibian communities of Panama are a well-studied example of catastrophic Bd-related declines. Now that Bd (or Batrachochytrium
    AmphibiaWeb


  • Amphibian model organism

    Given the diversity of amphibian species, more amphibian model organisms are sorely needed to address fundamental questions in developmental biology, regeneration, toxicology, genetics, and human...
    AmphibiaWeb


  • Monitoring of amphibians after a climate change‐ and infectious disease‐driven species extirpation

    Few long-term studies explore the effects of infectious disease and climate change on amphibians. A new study in the high alpine amphibian...
    AmphibiaWeb


  • Parental care and reproductive behavior of Centrolene peristictum

    Estudiamos la biología reproductiva de Centrolene peristitum, una especie en peligro de extinción, dentro de un bosque nublado en el noroeste de los andes ecuatorianos (15 Diciembre...
    SA Journal of Herpetology


  • Macroevolutionary shift in the size of amphibian genomes

    Amphibians have some of the largest and smallest known genomes of all tetrapods. Liedtke et al. (2018) shows that, although genome size is incredibly variable across...
    AmphibiaWeb


  • Carchi: Un hogar para dos anfibios

    La microcuenca del río Chinambí, localizada en el noroccidente de la provincia del Carchi, es el hogar de dos especies de anfibios: Atelopus coynei y Atelopus sp. aff. longirostris. Estas dos variedades de ranas,...
    El Comercio


  • Nueva especie de Scinax de Ecuador

    Scinax is a speciose genus of Neotropical hylid frogs. We describe a new species from western Ecuador (elevations between 0 and 1207 m) using morphology, vocalizations, and DNA sequences.
    PLoS ONE


  • Is global climate change affecting amphibian communities?

    Is global climate change affecting amphibian communities now and is it likely to affect them in the future? A group of North American amphibian biologists (Miller et al. 2018) used...
    AmphibiaWeb


  • Tres especies nuevas de anfibios por semana

    New species of amphibians continue to be named at a pace of about 3 per week. Many of the newly described species are from well-explored regions, where they have been...
    AmphibiaWeb


  • Amphibian advocates

    Our amphibian advocate for this newsletter is Fausto Siavichay Pesántez, Coordinator at the Amphibian Conservation Center at Zoo Amaru in Ecuador. Fausto and his team have been working to help...
    AARK


  • Effect of climate change on distribution of species of common horned frogs in South America

    Our main objectives were to verify the effect of climate change on distribution of frogs of the family Ceratophryidae and if the legal...
    PLoS ONE


  • Effects of pathogens (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, B. salamandrivorans, ranaviruses) on amphibian hosts

    Disease-causing pathogens are significant contributors to amphibian population declines. A recent...
    AmphibiaWeb


  • Force‐transmitting structures in the digital pads of the tree frog Hyla cinerea: a functional interpretation

    Langowski et al. (2018) revealed new insights on the biomechanics of how frogs attach to (and detach from) surfaces by examining the toe...
    AmphibiaWeb


  • Las ranas mueren y es por el cambio climático

    Frøerne dør, og det er klimaforandringernes skyld. Frømassakren i Ecuador (El nuevo asesino en Ecuador). El cambio climático provocado por el hombre...
    Koncentrat


  • Review of the genus Cruziohyla (Anura: Phyllomedusidae), with description of a new species

    The presented work summarises new and existing phenotypic and phylogenetic information for the genus Cruziohyla. Data based on...
    Zootaxa


  • First record of Pristimantis rufioculis (Duellman & Pramuk , 1999) from Ecuador

    A male specimen of P. rufioculis was collected on may 21, 2017, at the locality Campanilla, San Carlos, Province of Zamora Chinchipe, on...
    Herpetozoa


  • A new minute Pristimantis (Amphibia: Anura: Strabomantidae) from the Andes of southern Ecuador

    We describe a new rainfrog species (Pristimantis), from the wetland complex Oña, Nabón, Saraguro and Yacuambi in the Andes of southern...
    Plos One