Sani Lodge Pt.5 – The Amphibians!
The other new frog was one I had hoped to see for some time. It too was found sitting on a leaf in the forest. I saw it from a distance despite its tiny size. What caught my attention was that it literally was glowing in the forest. Dendropsophus miyatai should have wires attached to it because it is stunning and electric. At first I attributed the glow to my LED headlamp but later I found it was just a damn bright frog. I have a couple frames where the flashes didn’t fire. The photos are near black but the orange and gold flecking still screams off the frog. There is no Photoshop trickery with this one.
The frog find of the trip – an electric Dendropsophus miyatai.
To show the scale the tiny D. miyatai sits atop my index finger.
So this is a sampling of the amphibians of Sani Lodge, Ecuador. I hope by sharing some of these spectacular creatures and some of what it takes to see them that I inspire you to travel to these seemingly remote regions to seem them for yourselves.
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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.