Critically Endangered
Atelopus balios
Atelopus balios
Atelopus balios is a toad in the family Bufonidae (order Anura), recorded as Critically Endangered and tied to Ecuador.
Appearance
Adult males measure 27–29 mm (1.1–1.1 in) and females 35–37 mm (1.4–1.5 in) in snout–vent length. The dorsum is olive green and is covered with rounded black spots that also extend to the limbs. The belly is almost totally cream yellow, except for the margins to that the black spots extend.
The tail makes up 52% of the total body length.
Range and habitat
It is endemic to southwestern Ecuador, with records from Pacific lowlands in Azuay, Cañar, and Guayas Provinces.
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
It is a rare species that was already suspected to be extinct, but a single specimen was discovered in 2011 by a team from Conservation International during a hunt for missing amphibians. The decline in amphibian populations is well documented. The Atelopus balios is Critically Endangered as a result of the widespread amphibian Chytridiomycosis fungus that has decimated other amphibian populations.
There are only 10 known findings of the tadpole, Atelopus balios. It is threatened by chytridiomycosis and habitat loss caused by agriculture, logging, and pollution.
Chytrid fungus, collection, and wet-forest loss are the usual pressures on frogs with a high threat category.
Atelopus balios 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 Atelopus balios, Wikidata item Q2236252. 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.
