Critically Endangered
Starry night toad
Atelopus arsyecue
The starry night harlequin toad is a toad in the family Bufonidae endemic to the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia.
Appearance
It is named after its unique coloration, being largely black with white spots.
Starry night toads are one of ~130 Atelopus species presently described by science. 37% of these species are similar to the starry night toad in that they were presumed extinct, either by trending decline or missing data, but later found extant.
Range and habitat
Starry night harlequin toads seek habitat consisting of montane forest, high-altitude grasslands, and inland wetlands. As documented, the toad only occurs in a single defined location. Its range is specifically limited to the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta National Park of Colombia, with an estimated extent of occurrence of 80 km² across the mountains.
The Arhuaco people want to see their intrinsic gouna species preserved for many generations to come, just as conservation science does.
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
Starry night toad is primarily threatened by habitat loss, with assumptions on decline by chytridiomycosis. Coupled with the inaccessibility of the preservation that the toad calls home, the species was feared extinct for over 30 years. In 2019, the tribe consented to collaboration with researchers and showed them the living population, marking the first scientific documentation of this species in over 30 years.
While concrete evidence of infection has yet to be found, chytridiomycosis is suspect for additional decline of the already vulnerable population. This virulent fungus has already been found at fault for sharp declines in other Colombian harlequin toad populations, such as Atelopus simulatus and Atelopus zeteki.
Chytrid fungus, collection, and wet-forest loss are the usual pressures on frogs with a high threat category.
Starry night toad 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 Starry night toad, Wikidata item Q2236724. 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.
