Description
Diagnosis: A small red-eyed treefrog, brown to light-green in color, with a white stripe running from snout to groin and expanded into a large white suborbital spot, a moderately-sized tympanum, yellow posterior thigh, and yellow venter (Savage 2002).

Description: Adult males are 30-33 mm SVL, and adult females are 30-36 mm in SVL. Head is wider than long, with a snout that is rounded in profile and truncate in dorsal view. Eyes are large. The tympanum is distinct and moderate-sized, measuring 55-63% of the eye diameter. Fingers are short and stout with minimal webbing between fingers, and only vestigial webbing between fingers I and II. Fingers each have a single distal subarticular tubercle. Toes are moderately webbed. A large oblong metatarsal tubercle is present but no inner metatarsal tubercle. The dorsum is smooth and the venter is granular. In adult males, a single moderately distensible internal subgular vocal sac and vocal slits are present, as well as a nonspinous brown nuptial pad on the base of the thumb (Savage 2002; Savage 1968).

Coloration is light brown or light to bright green. This species is able to change color, exhibiting metachrosis. Eyelids and the top of the head have green and brown flecking when the frog is in the brown phase. A light stripe begins at the snout, continues along the head, expands into a large subocular spot, and continues along the flank to the groin. Light stripes run along the margins of the forearms, feet, and above the cloaca. Limbs have no transverse bars. The upper forearm is yellow with an oblique white stripe. Anterior and posterior surfaces of the thighs are yellow. All ventral surfaces are yellow. The vocal sac is white. Iris is bright red (Savage 2002; Savage 1968).

Distribution and Habitat

Country distribution from AmphibiaWeb's database: Costa Rica, Panama

View distribution map in BerkeleyMapper.

Duellmanohyla lythrodes has a fragmented distribution on the lower Caribbean slopes of the Cordillera de Talamanca in southwestern Costa Rica and northwestern Panama (Savage 2002; Ibañez et al. 2000). It is found at altitudes of 170-440 m asl, adjacent to streams in the lowland wet forests (Savage 2002).

Life History, Abundance, Activity, and Special Behaviors
Perches in trees or low vegetation about 3 m above ground (Solís et al. 2004). The call is a weak bell-like "ping", given in five to seven notes (Savage 2002).

Trends and Threats
Duellmanohyla lythrodes is a rare and endangered species, known only from three specimens. The major threat to this species is habitat loss resulting from deforestation for farming, logging, and human settlement. It does not appear to occur within any protected areas. It is not known whether this species is threatened by chytridiomycosis (Solís et al. 2004).

Possible reasons for amphibian decline

Habitat modification from deforestation, or logging related activities
Intensified agriculture or grazing
Urbanization
Dams changing river flow and/or covering habitat
Disease

Comments

This species may be synonymous with D. rufioculis, according to Solís et al. (2004); it was originally thought to be synonymous by Duellman (1970) but was separated by Myers and Duellman (1982) after the latter authors collected additional specimens from northwestern Panama that differed in the size of the tympanum and ventral coloration (Savage 2002).

A Spanish-language species account can be found at the website of Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad (INBio).

References

Duellman, W.E. (1970). The Hylid Frogs of Middle America. Monograph of the Museum of Natural History, University of Kansas.

Ibañez, R., Solí­s, F., Jaramillo, C. and Rand, S. (2000). ''An overview of the herpetology of Panama.'' Mesoamerican Herpetology: Systematics, Zoogeography and Conservation. Johnson, J. D., Webb, R. G. and Flores-Villela, O. A., eds., The University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, Texas, 159-170.

Myers, C. W. and Duellman, W. E. (1982). ''A new species of Hyla from Cerro Colorado, and other tree frog records and geographical notes from western Panama.'' American Museum of Natural History Novitates, (2752), 1-32.

Savage, J. M. (1968). ''A new red-eyed tree-frog (family Hylidae) from Costa Rica, with a review of the Hyla uranochroa group.'' Bulletin of the Southern California Academy of Sciences, 67, 1-20.

Savage, J. M. (2002). The Amphibians and Reptiles of Costa Rica:a herpetofauna between two continents, between two seas. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois, USA and London.

Solís, F., Ibáñez, R., Chaves, G., Savage, J., Jaramillo, C., Fuenmayor, Q., and Bolaños, F. (2004). Duellmanohyla lythrodes. In: IUCN 2009. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2009.1. www.iucnredlist.org. Downloaded on 05 October 2009.

Species Account Citation: AmphibiaWeb 2010 Duellmanohyla lythrodes <https://amphibiaweb.org/species/689> University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. Accessed Jan 31, 2025.

Citation: AmphibiaWeb. 2025. <https://amphibiaweb.org> University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. Accessed 31 Jan 2025.

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