Description
Pseudophilautus dayawansai is a small sized frog with snout vent length of 24.5 – 26.2 mm in males and 30.1 mm in females. head dorsally convex; snout laterally truncate, skin dorsally tuberculated, a single prominent tubercle medially placed; canthus rostralis rounded; loreal region, interorbital space and internarial space concave; vomerine teeth absent; lingual papilla, fringe on fingers and blunt small calcar present; interorbital area smooth, with a ridge across breaking medially; side of head tubercular; anterior dorsum smooth; posterior dorsum weakly tubercular; median dermal ridge absent; upper and lower flank granular; throat shagreen (Wickramasinghe et al. 2013).

Colour in life: Dorsally brown with dark brown blotches; much of the dorsum covered with a dark brown marking, forming a clear semicircular blackish margin anteriorly, its center with a large light brown triangle, prominent, symmetrically placed on dorsum with the base on sacral hump pointing towards head, its margins blackish-brown and outer area dark brown, three prominent blackish-brown circular spots, two between eyes, and right in front another circular dark brown spot, posterior part from sacrum light brown; lateral body, and behind eyes dark brown with an olive green tinge; limbs dark brown, forelimbs, hind limbs, fingers and toes with maroon cross bands, hind limbs laterally olive green tinge; ventrally light brown with dark brown blotching, hands, feet and webbing darker (Wickramasinghe et al. 2013).

Colour in alcohol: Colour pattern remains with a little fading, maroon to dark brown, venter light brown to off-white with darker marbling, green tinge absent (Wickramasinghe et al. 2013).

Distribution and Habitat

Country distribution from AmphibiaWeb's database: Sri Lanka

View distribution map in BerkeleyMapper.

Pseudophilautus dayawansai is found in Sripada (Peak Wilderness), Ratnapura District, Sabaragamuwa Province, Sri Lanka at elevations of 1550–1900 m (Wickramasinghe et al. 2013; Batuwita et al. 2019).

Life History, Abundance, Activity, and Special Behaviors
This species is found from the forest floor to about 2 m high on shrubs in cloud forests (Wickramasinghe et al. 2013).

All frogs of this genus are terrestrial direct developers (Bahir et al. 2005).

Comments
Pseudophilautus dayawansai is named after Nihal Dayawansa, Senior Lecturer of the Department of Zoology, University of Colombo in recognition of his dedicated service and commitment towards amphibian research work in Sri Lanka (Wickramasinghe et al. 2013).

As of yet, no molecular phylogenetic analysis has been done on this species to determine its relation to other representatives of the same genus.

References

Bahir, M. M., Meegaskumbura, M., Manamendra-Arachchi, K., Schneider, C. J., and Pethiyagoda, R. (2005). ''Reproduction and terrestrial direct development in Sri Lankan shrub frogs (Ranidae: Rhacophorinae: Philautus).'' The Raffles Bulletin of Zoology, 12, 339-350. [link]

Batuwita S, Udugampala S, DeSilva M, Diao J and Edirisinghe U. (2019). "A review of amphibian fauna of Sri Lanka: distribution, recent taxonomic changes and conservation." Journal of Animal Diversity, 1(2), 44-82. [link]

Wickramasinghe, L.J.M., D.R. Vidanapathirana, M.D.G. Rajeev, S.C. Ariyarathne, A.W.A. Chanaka, L.L.D. Priyantha, I.N. Bandara & N. Wickramasinghe (2013). Eight new species of Pseudophilautus (Amphibia, Anura, Rhacophoridae) from Sripada World Heritage Site (Peak Wilderness), a local amphibian hotspot in Sri Lanka. Journal of Threatened Taxa 5(4): 3789–3920 [link]

Species Account Citation: AmphibiaWeb 2021 Pseudophilautus dayawansai: Dayawansa's Shrub Frog; Dayawansage panduru madiya <https://amphibiaweb.org/species/7986> University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. Accessed Nov 21, 2024.

Citation: AmphibiaWeb. 2024. <https://amphibiaweb.org> University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. Accessed 21 Nov 2024.

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