Critically Endangered
Callulina dawida
Callulina dawida
Callulina dawida is a frog in the family Brevicipitidae (order Anura), recorded as Critically Endangered.
Appearance
The skin is warty and dorsal adult colour is variable from light brown, grey, dark brown, orange to yellowish. In terms of colouration there is no well-marked sexual dimorphism.
Callulina dawida is a medium-sized frog in that females can reach 55 mm and males 35 mm.
C. Dawida was described in 2009 by a team led by Simon Loader. It received its specific name after Dawida language, that is spoken in Taita Hills.
Range and habitat
Callulina dawida is a high-elevation species occurring in indigenous forest fragments above 1400 m (4600 ft) within Dawida and Mbololo blocks of the Taita Hills. The species is most abundant in the high altitude, but is absent in typical farmland and plantation habitats. Movement is limited in this species justifying its survival in tiny forest patches.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Breeding
Callulina dawida start breeding with calls mainly during the long dry season from around July. Then egg clutch is deposited on leaf litter nests in September and the mother broods them for three months until November.
Callulina dawida, like other brevicipitids, deposit relatively small clutches of large yolk-rich eggs that are buffered by infertile jelly-filled egg capsules, possibly to prevent the fertile eggs from desiccation during the dry period. Eggs hatch at different times and the young ones immediately leave the nest site.
In crisis
Even so, within the last decade eight new species have been identified, many that are considered critically endangered by IUCN. Callulina dawida has been evaluated by IUCN as a critically endangered species because its small and fragmented range and ongoing deterioration and loss of its habitat.
Chytrid fungus, collection, and wet-forest loss are the usual pressures on frogs with a high threat category.
Callulina dawida 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 Callulina dawida, Wikidata item Q2934309. 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.
