Description
Adult female 28.4-31.0 mm SVL. Slender body. Head dorsally convex with concave interorbital region. Snout rounded in lateral view, angled at about 85 degrees (category 3 of Manamendra-Arachchi and Pethiyagoda 2005), with rounded canthi, concave loreal region, concave internarial area. Tympanum discernible, oval-shaped and vertical, with distinct supratympanic fold. Pineal ocellus present. Vomerine teeth present. Lingual papilla absent but tongue bears conical tubercles. No lateral dermal fringe on fingers. Toes webbed medially. Tarsal fold and calcar lacking. Dorsum, head, and upper flank smooth; lower flank rough and granular. Dorsal surface of forelimb smooth with sparse glandular warts. Shank, foot, throat, and chest smooth. Thighs smooth dorsally, smoothly granular ventrally. Belly rough and granular. Vent has glandular warts surrounding it (Manamendra-Arachchi and Pethiyagoda 2005).

Color in preservative: Head, dorsum, upper flank, dorsal and lateral forelimb and foot are yellowish pale-brown with small brown spots. Lower flank is yellow, and the inguinal area pale yellow. Thigh and shank have indistinct crossbars dorsally, on a yellowish pale-brown background. Ventral thigh is pale brownish-yellow. Throat, throat margin, and chest are pale yellow with brown dots. Belly is yellow. Webbing is pale yellow (Manamendra-Arachchi and Pethiyagoda 2005).

Distribution and Habitat

Country distribution from AmphibiaWeb's database: Sri Lanka

View distribution map in BerkeleyMapper.

Endemic to Sri Lanka; known only from the general type locality "Ceylon" (Stuart et al. 2008).

Life History, Abundance, Activity, and Special Behaviors
Known only from the lectotype series; Pseudophilautus temporalis has not been recorded since its description (Günther 1869) despite extensive searches and is presumed extinct.

Larva
It is believed to have been a direct developer, like other species in the genus Pseudophilautus (Stuart et al. 2008).

Trends and Threats
The exact reason for the extinction of this species is not known, but it is believed that habitat loss was the major factor (Stuart et al. 2008).

Possible reasons for amphibian decline

General habitat alteration and loss

References

Günther, A. (1869). ''First account of species of tailless batrachians added to the collection of the British Museum.'' Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 1868, 478-499.

Manamendra-Arachchi, K., and Pethiyagoda, R. (2005). ''The Sri Lankan shrub-frogs of the genus Philautus Gistel, 1848 (Ranidae: Rhacophorinae), with description of 27 new species.'' Raffles Bulletin of Zoology, Supplement 12, 163-303.

Stuart, S., Hoffmann, M., Chanson, J., Cox, N., Berridge, R., Ramani, P., Young, B. (eds) (2008). Threatened Amphibians of the World. Lynx Edicions, IUCN, and Conservation International, Barcelona, Spain; Gland, Switzerland; and Arlington, Virginia, USA.

Species Account Citation: AmphibiaWeb 2022 Pseudophilautus temporalis <https://amphibiaweb.org/species/4461> University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. Accessed Nov 18, 2024.

Citation: AmphibiaWeb. 2024. <https://amphibiaweb.org> University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. Accessed 18 Nov 2024.

AmphibiaWeb's policy on data use.