Sani Lodge Pt.5 – The Amphibians!
Another frequent caller from the water edge was the hatchet-faced frog Sphaenorhynchus lacteus. This is another of the few frog calls I know (and frequently caught) so I chose to ignore them. That is until I couldn’t place a loud metallic calling with them. But on each inspection I only saw S. lacteus; until I actually caught what I thought was S. lacteus calling this different call. So I bagged one of each and found that I had S. dorisae as well. I wasn’t sure it was in this region.
The hatchet-faced frog, Sphaenorhyncus lacteus, was common in the grasses at the edge of the lagoon.
Another of the 3 species of western Amazonian hatchet-faced frogs, Sphaenorhynchus dorisae.
I caught at least 3 species of Pristimantis sleeping on vegetation or bolting through leaf litter and think there were another 3-5 more species but these don’t make for great photos so I only took some grab shots of 2 of them.
I am not very good at working with Brachycephalids. I believe this is Pristimantis peruvianus.
Hypsiboas punctatus was also another frog that I’d see once a night or so within the forest. Usually they were just strangely sitting on leaves doing what seems to be nothing.
The common polkadot treefrog, Hypsiboas punctatus.
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4 comments
Another great post, Tim! Thanks for sharing your experiences and your awesome photos!
Oh, great picture! That’s a cool little frog. I’ve always wanted to go to South America and look for dart frogs. Just to see them in their natural environment!
Great looking trip. I want to field herp in south America sometime. Wish I had somebody who loved them as much as me to go with!
The dart frog community is pretty close-knit. Dive in and you’ll find someone to take a trip with you. I’ve been fortunate to see lots of dendrobatid species in the wild (from several countries); many of them exceedingly rare. You do have to put in the work to pull it off but the rewards are worth it. I’ll have to write a dendrobatid hunting article some day.