Description

Boana almendarizae is a treefrog with a snout-vent length range of 34.31 - 44.56 mm in males and 37.8 - 51.94 mm in females. The head is wider than it is long, and the snout is rounded in the lateral view and truncated in the dorsal view. The canthus rostralis is indistinct and rounded, the loreal region is concave, and the internarial area is convex. The nostrils are not protuberant and they are directed laterally. The eyes are large and very protuberant, and the eye diameter is about twice as large as the diameter of the tympanic annulus. The distance from the eye to the nostril is shorter than the eye diameter. The tympanum is concealed beneath skin, and the tympanic annulus is evident, ovoid, longer dorsoventrally, and concealed dorsally by the supratympanic fold. The supratympanic fold reaches the anterior border of the arm insertion. The dorsum, head, and dorsal surfaces of the limbs are smooth, and the venter and ventral surfaces of the head and limbs are granular. The shanks and flanks are smooth, and the flanks have weak longitudinal wrinkles posterior to the arm. The cloacal opening is posteriorly directed at the upper level of the thighs. The cloacal sheath is short and simple, and it covers the cloacal opening. There are round tubercles both below and on the sides of the vent that are larger proximally. The arms are slender, the axillary membrane is absent, and there are indistinct low tubercles on the ventrolateral edge of the forearm. The relative lengths of the fingers are I < II < IV < III, and they have large, oval discs that are about a third to a three fourths the length of the tympanum diameter. The subarticular tubercles are round to ovoid, prominent, and single. The supernumerary tubercles are present, and the palmar tubercle is single and elongated. The prepollical tubercle is large, elliptical, and flat, and the prepollex is enlarged and claw shaped. The webbing on the fingers is absent. The relative length of the toes is I < II < V < III < IV. There is a large, conical calcar on the tibiotarsal articulation, and there are scattered and ill-defined tubercles on the tarsus and the ventrolateral edge of the foot. The toe discs are slightly wider than long and are smaller than the finger discs. The outer metatarsal tubercle is ill defined, small, and round, and the inner metatarsal tubercle is large and elliptical. The subarticular tubercles are single, round, and flat, and supernumerary tubercles are found on the soles. The webbing formula of the toes is I 2 – 2 ¾ II 1 ¾ – 3- III 2- – 3+ IV 3+ – 2- V (Caminer and Ron 2014).

Boana almendarizae is most similar to B. fasciata and B. calcarata. It can be differentiated from B. calcarata by its large and conical shaped calcar versus large and triangular shaped in B. calcarata, its thin transversal lines on the flanks versus the wide ones in B. calcarata, and its advertisement call. It can be differentiated from B. fasciata by having narrower transversal dark bars on the flanks and thighs and by its yellow to orange upper iris band color versus the red to reddish brown upper iris band color in B. fasciata. Other similar species include B. maculateralis and B. alfaroi. Boana almendarizae can be differentiated from these two species by advertisement call, the presence of vertical lines on the flanks and on the hidden surfaces of the thighs, the presence of a calcar, and by the absence of dark flecks on the chest and gular region (Caminer and Ron 2014).

In life, the dorsal coloration varies from cream, reddish brown, grayish brown, pale brown, or brown and sometimes has dark marks. The dark marks are in the form of broad transverse bands or narrow longitudinal lines. There is also a dark brown middorsal line that is often present. The flanks and hidden surfaces of the thighs are blue in females and light blue or white in males and they have thin dark brown vertical bars. The venter and the ventral surfaces of the thighs are a creamy white or yellowish white color. The iris is a cream or creamy silver with an upper yellow to orange band (Caminer and Ron 2014).

There is sexual dimorphism with the females being larger than the males and the coloration of the flanks and hidden surfaces of the thighs being blue in females and light blue or white in males. Individual dorsal coloration, regardless of sex, also varies from cream, reddish brown, grayish brown, to pale brown (Caminer and Ron 2014).

Distribution and Habitat

Country distribution from AmphibiaWeb's database: Ecuador

View distribution map in BerkeleyMapper.

Boana almendarizae is found in central and eastern Ecuador on the eastern Andean slopes. The elevation ranges from 500 to 1950 m above sea level. Their habitat is usually small ponds and rivers in secondary forests, flooded areas with pastures, and swamps and streams with grass. They have been most often found in Amazonian Evergreen Foothill Forest (Caminer and Ron 2014).

Life History, Abundance, Activity, and Special Behaviors

The advertisement call consists of three to four “quack” notes with a mean duration of 0.48 s and mean rise time of 0.30 s. The mean dominant frequency is 1954.43 Hz and mean fundamental frequency is 951.76 Hz (Caminer and Ron 2014).

Most individuals have been found on vegetation about 20 to 150 cm above the ground near water (Caminer and Ron 2014).

Larva

While no larva have been identified for this species, larva for a similar species, B. calcarata, has been identified and described. The larval stage of B. almendarizae is most likely similar (Duellman 2005).

Trends and Threats

A large amount of habitat for B. almendarizae has been degraded by agriculture and cattle raising, which are the largest threats to this species (Caminer and Ron 2014).

Comments

In a 2014 Maximum Likelihood analysis based on 12S and 16S mtDNA, B. almendarizae was place as sister to B. calcarata, the two of which form a clade that is sister to B. fasciata (Caminer and Ron 2014).

The species epithet, “almendarizae”, is a patronym for Ana Almendáriz, an Ecuadorian herpetologist and the curator of Herpetology in the Museo de Historia Natural Gustavo Orcés at Escuela Politécnica Nacional del Ecuador (Caminer and Ron 2014).

References

Caminer, M. A. and Santiago, R. R. (2014). Systematic of treefrogs of the Hypisboas calcaratus and Hypsiboas fasciatus species complex (Anura, Hylidae) with the description of four new species. ZooKeys 370, 1 - 68. [link]

Duellman, W. E. (2005). Cusco Amazonico: The lives of amphibians and reptiles in an Amazonian rainforest. New York: Comstock Publishing Associates, Cornell University.

Species Account Citation: AmphibiaWeb 2024 Boana almendarizae: Almendariz's Tree Frog <https://amphibiaweb.org/species/8119> University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. Accessed Apr 25, 2024.

Citation: AmphibiaWeb. 2024. <https://amphibiaweb.org> University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. Accessed 25 Apr 2024.

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