Description
Pristimantis giorgii is a frog with an average snout-vent length of 32.23 mm for females and 32.09 mm for males. The head is longer than it is wide and accounts for almost forty percent of the snout-vent length. The nostrils are quite far from their eyes and are very close to the snout. There is light padding on their fingertips and the third finger is the longest and the second finger is the shortest. Subarticular tubercles are present on all toes but vary in number depending on the toe with toe five having the maxim of three. The thighs of this species are granulated posteriorly and there is no webbing on the feet (de Oliveira et al. 2020). For a more complete description, please see Oliveira et al. 2020.

DIAGNOSIS:

Pristimantis giorgii can be distinguished from other Pristimantis in the region by the presence of a discoidal fold and lack of dorsolateral fold. Additionally, this species’ call typically contains three to four notes (de Oliveira et al. 2020).

COLORATION:

In life, P. giorgii has a light brown. It has yellow spots on its thighs near its groin area as well as a mostly white belly. In preservative, the species is brown dorsally (de Oliveira et al. 2020).

VARIATION:

There is some sexual dimorphism with the females being bigger than the males and the males having vocal slits. The texture of the venter of this species also differed as it is granulated laterally in some individuals and smooth with no granulation in other individuals (de Oliveira et al. 2020).

Distribution and Habitat

Country distribution from AmphibiaWeb's database: Brazil

View distribution map in BerkeleyMapper.

Pristimantis giorgii lives in the Para state of Northern Brazil primarily in the Xingu-Tocantins rainforests (de Oliveira et al. 2020).

Life History, Abundance, Activity, and Special Behaviors
This species usually resides and moves through the leaves on the forest floor when it is not the rainy season (de Oliveira et al. 2020).

Mating season for this species starts and continues through the rainy season. During this season, the males move two feet up in the surrounding forest vegetation in order to call for potential mates (de Oliveira et al. 2020).

Calls typically lasted 0.131 - 0.278 seconds and contained 4 - 14 pulses and 3 - 4 notes that each lasted 0.017 - 0.074 s. The calls had a fundamental frequency of 663.24 - 1872.28 Hz and a dominant frequency of 1660.17 - 4141.90 Hz (de Oliveira et al. 2020).

Trends and Threats
There are deforestation threats in this species’ habitats as the forests and areas in which it normally resides are part of the Eastern Amazon Rainforest, a region that has been experiencing rapid deforestation over the past few decades. Furthermore, there is one specific region in Para state where forests are fragmented by agriculture (Azevedo-Ramos and Galatti 2002).

Relation to Humans
There is no evidence of this species having a relationship with humans in any capacity.

Possible reasons for amphibian decline

General habitat alteration and loss
Habitat modification from deforestation, or logging related activities
Habitat fragmentation

Comments

PHYLOGENETIC RELATIONSHIPS:

Pristimantis latro is the sister taxon to P. giorgii, based on Bayesian analysis of the 16S ribosomal RNA gene (de Oliveira et al. 2020).

ETYMOLOGY:

The species epithet, “giorgii”, honors Professor Jose Andriano Giorgi who conducts entomofauna research at Universidade Federal do Pará in Brazil (de Oliveira et al. 2020).

References

Azevedo-Ramos, C., Galatti, U. (2002). “Patterns of amphibian diversity in Brazilian Amazonia: Conservation implications.” Biological Conservation, 103(1), 103–111. [link]

de Oliveira, E. A., da Silva, L. A., Silva, E. A. P., Guimarães, K. L. A., Penhacek, M., Martínez, J. G., Ribeiro Rodrigues, L. R., Santana, D. J., Hernández-Ruz, E. J. (2020). “Four new species of Pristimantis Jiménez de la Espada, 1870 (Anura: Craugastoridae) in the eastern Amazon.” PLoS ONE, 15(11), e0243182 [link]

Species Account Citation: AmphibiaWeb 2022 Pristimantis giorgii <https://amphibiaweb.org/species/9150> University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. Accessed Apr 19, 2024.

Citation: AmphibiaWeb. 2024. <https://amphibiaweb.org> University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. Accessed 19 Apr 2024.

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