Critically Endangered
Alsodes pehuenche
Alsodes pehuenche
Alsodes pehuenche is a frog in the family Alsodidae (order Anura), recorded as Critically Endangered.
Appearance
Males in two Chilean locations measured on average 51 mm (2.0 in) and females 50.4 mm (1.98 in) in snout–vent length. The head is wide with snout that is short and rounded. The dorsal coloration is light brown with diffuse, irregular, darker blotches.
Range and habitat
It is found primarily in galleries inside small permanent snowmelt streams with stony banks, covered by herbaceous vegetation. It can also be found in ponds and swamps derived from snowmelt. The altitude of its habitat is between 2,000–2,523 m (6,562–8,278 ft) asl. It is endemic to Pehuenche Valley in the Andes of southern Mendoza Province, Argentina, and the adjacent Chile.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Breeding
Calling males and egg sites define most frog field work. A species known from one ridge is as narrow as it sounds.
Eggs and damp skin make amphibians quick to vanish from a drained wetland or a forest stripped of litter.
In crisis
At the time of the assessment by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in 2012 (published 2013), the species was known from six streams (five in Argentina and one in Chile) in an area encompassing some 9 km2. Additional threats are waste from tourists and tramping by livestock. Considering these threats and the very limited area of occurrence, the Amphibian Specialist Group of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has classified this species as critically endangered.
Chytrid fungus, collection, and wet-forest loss are the usual pressures on frogs with a high threat category.
Alsodes pehuenche is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Alsodes pehuenche, Wikidata item Q2240227. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
