Critically Endangered
Atelopus ignescens
Atelopus ignescens
Atelopus ignescens is a toad in the family Bufonidae (order Anura), recorded as Critically Endangered and tied to Ecuador.
Appearance
Adult females measure between 36–48 mm (1.4–1.9 in) in snout–vent length, with males measuring from 34–41 mm (1.3–1.6 in). The body is robust with long limbs and truncate snout. The dorsal coloration is uniformly black, as is the iris.
Range and habitat
It is endemic to the northern Andes of Ecuador. The specific name ignescens means "to catch fire," presumably in reference to the orange ventral color of this species.
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
This once abundant species was believed to be extinct until its rediscovery in 2016. With the last recorded sighting dating to 1988, the species was thought to be extinct until early 2016, when a relict population was identified in the rural parish of Angamarca, Cotopaxi, Ecuador. The species started to decline in the 1980s, probably due to the chytridiomycosis that ravaged other amphibian species around the world, and prior to its rediscovery had been listed as extinct by the IUCN.
Other threats include habitat destruction, pollution, climate change, and invasive rainbow trout.
Chytrid fungus, collection, and wet-forest loss are the usual pressures on frogs with a high threat category.
Atelopus ignescens 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 ignescens, Wikidata item Q540587. 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.
