Critically Endangered
Atelopus petersi
Atelopus petersi
Atelopus petersi is a toad in the family Bufonidae (order Anura), recorded as Critically Endangered and tied to Ecuador.
Appearance
Adult males measure 35–42 mm (1.4–1.7 in) and adult females are 43–50 mm (1.7–2.0 in) in snout–vent length. The dorsum has a yellow to orange pattern on black background, and may be almost entirely black. Warts and pustules may have white tops.
Range and habitat
It is endemic to Ecuador and is known from the Cordillera Oriental in the Napo Province and more provisionally, in the Chimborazo Province.
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
Individuals have been found under rocks at the edge of a stream, in a streambed by day, under logs on a grassy hillside, on a cushion plant in paramo, on a trail, and along the border of a river. It is feared that the species might now be extinct. The precise reasons for this dramatic decline are not known, but climate abnormalities and chytridiomycosis are possible factors.
Chytrid fungus, collection, and wet-forest loss are the usual pressures on frogs with a high threat category.
Atelopus petersi 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 petersi, Wikidata item Q2709615. 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.
