Description
Leptodactylus silvanimbus is a moderately sized frog, ranging from 41-55 mm SVL in adult males and 44-48 mm SVL in adult females. Adult males possess a single, internal vocal sac, two black thumb spines on each hand, and lateral ridges on each toe. Adult females have small fringes along their toes. All individuals lack dorsolateral folds and light, middorsal stripes. The rough skin on the back is grayish brown and covered in small tubercles. The belly is a solid cream color.

Tadpoles measure 42-53 mm in total length. The bodies are brownish gray and tails are clear with brown dots (Heyer et al. 2002).

Distribution and Habitat

Country distribution from AmphibiaWeb's database: Honduras

View distribution map in BerkeleyMapper.

Southwestern Honduras. Populations have been found at three different localities around 1470-2000 m along the Continental Divide of the Cordillera de Celaque and Cordillera del Merendon in the Departamento Ototepeque, in cloud or pine forest (Heyer et al. 2002).

Life History, Abundance, Activity, and Special Behaviors

The call of L. silvanimbus is a single note ranging from 0.15-0.17 seconds. It fluctuates in frequency slightly, from 420 Hz at the beginning of the call, to 1920 Hz as the call continues, although these modulations are not discernable to the human ear. About 23 calls are made per minute (Heyer et al. 2002).

Larvae of Leptodactylus silvanimbus are members of the lentic, benthic guild (Altig and Johnston 1989).

Trends and Threats
Due to deforestation in Honduras, many of the cloud forests and moderate elevation pine forests that were home to Leptodactylus silvanimbus have been almost completely destroyed. One of the three known habitats has already been dramatically affected by these changing environmental conditions; when the community was checked in 1995, no members of the species were found. There is a possibility that other communities of L. silvanimbus exist, but further surveys of the Ocotepaque region need to be conducted before this can be determined. Although this species is known to exist in deforested areas for short periods of time, the fact that none of L. silvanimbus' natural habitats are protected means that the chances for the species' continued survival is not good (Heyer et al. 2002).

Comments

Leptodactylus silvanimbus was named for the habitat in which it was originally found. In Latin, "silva" means "forest," and "nimbus" means "cloud" (McCranie et al. 1980). Frank and Ramus (1995) proposed "Honduras white-lipped frog" as a common name for L. silvanimbus, but the lack of light coloring on the lip of this species resulted in the rejection of this name (Heyer et al. 2002).

References

Altig, R., and Johnston, G. F. (1989). ''Guilds of anuran larvae; relationships among developmental modes, morphologies, and habitats.'' Herbetological Monographs, (3), 81-109.

Frank, N. and Ramus, E. (1995). A Complete Guide to Scientific and Common Names of Reptiles and Amphibians of the World. NG Publishing Inc., Pottsville, Pennsylvania.

Heyer, W. R., de Sa, R. O., and Muller, S. (2002). ''Leptodactylus silvanimbus.'' Catalogue of American Amphibians and Reptiles. Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles, 743.1-743.3.

McCranie, J. R., Wilson, L. D., and Porras, L. (1980). ''A new species of Leptodactylus from the cloud forests of Honduras.'' Journal of Herpetology, (14), 361-367.

Species Account Citation: AmphibiaWeb 2009 Leptodactylus silvanimbus <https://amphibiaweb.org/species/3365> University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. Accessed Dec 25, 2024.

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

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