Endangered
Cloud forest robber frog
Pristimantis surdus
Cloud forest robber frog is a rain frog in the family Craugastoridae (order Anura) — Pristimantis surdus, recorded as Endangered and tied to Ecuador.
The rain frog
The holotype measures 37 mm.
These New World rainfrogs typically skip a free-swimming tadpole: eggs are laid on land and froglets hatch directly.
Frogs and toads typically begin as aquatic tadpoles, though some families lay eggs on land and hatch as froglets. Skin and eggs both need moisture.
Range and habitat
This species is endemic to Ecuador. It is found in the provinces of Imbabura and Pichincha between 1550 and 3190 m above sea level in the Western Cordillera.
GBIF currently lists 190 occurrence points. Those points follow where people logged the taxon — museum drawers and surveys included — not a closed range boundary.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Breeding
Direct-developing rainfrogs live in wet forest. They do not need a pond, which is why a logged hillside can erase a species.
Calling males and egg sites define most frog field work. A species known from one ridge is as narrow as it sounds.
In crisis
Direct-developing frogs vanish with the forest floor. There is no pond population waiting off-site.
Cloud forest robber frog 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 Spanish Wikipedia article on Pristimantis surdus, translated and retold in English, plus Wikidata item Q3404157 and GBIF occurrence geography. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Confirm status and range on iucnredlist.org.
