Atelopus laetissimus

Appearance

Adult males measure 35 to 39 mm (1.4 to 1.5 in) and adult females, based on just one specimen, 54 mm (2.1 in) in snout–vent length. The snout is acuminate (males) or sub-acuminate (female) in dorsal view. Dorsal coloration is olive green, yellowish olive, or ocher with spots.

Range and habitat

It is endemic to Colombia and only known from the area of its type locality in the northwestern part of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, in the Magdalena Department.

The species is present in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta National Park as well as in the adjacent El Dorado Nature Reserve.

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

The populations appear stable and even locally abundant, but almost all observed animals are males. Habitat loss is a threat, with ongoing conversion of forest to pasture lands acutely threatening one of the populations. The species is also potentially threatened by chytridiomycosis (although as of 2014, the disease has not been detected in Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta).

Chytrid fungus, collection, and wet-forest loss are the usual pressures on frogs with a high threat category.

Atelopus laetissimus is 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 laetissimus, Wikidata item Q2236803. 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.