Critically Endangered
Rancho Grande Harlequin Frog
Atelopus cruciger
Rancho Grande Harlequin Frog is a toad in the family Bufonidae (order Anura) — Atelopus cruciger, recorded as Critically Endangered.
Appearance
Adult males measure 28–35 mm (1.1–1.4 in) and adult females 40–50 mm (1.6–2.0 in) in snout–vent length. The snout is pointed in dorsal view. Preserved specimens have greenish tan color that is lighter on the ventral side.
Range and habitat
It is endemic to Venezuela and is mainly found in the central Venezuelan Coastal Range. Despite considerable effort, no specimens of Rancho Grande Harlequin Frog could be found for seventeen years after 1986. The species was believed extinct until, in 2003, researchers found a small population at the Cordillera de La Costa.
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
Rancho Grande Harlequin Frog is mainly threatened by chytridiomycosis. Even so, the species has undergone a dramatic decline, and only few populations are known to persist.
Chytrid fungus, collection, and wet-forest loss are the usual pressures on frogs with a high threat category.
Rancho Grande Harlequin Frog 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 Rancho Grande Harlequin Frog, Wikidata item Q2056602. 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.
