hear Fonozoo call

Description
Eleutherodactylus tetajulia is a tiny frog, with males reaching only 12 mm in SVL and the larger females up to 14 mm in SVL. The digits are small and the digital discs are absent. There is no webbing between the toes. The vomerine teeth, behind the choanae, are in a curved series (Estrada and Hedges 1996).

It is coppery-brown dorsally with a dark brown mid-dorsal hourglass-shaped blotch. There is a narrow, whitish mid-dorsal line which is absent on the tip of the snout. The flanks are coppery-red. Other markings include a narrow black interocular bar, a dark brown horseshoe-shaped sacral mark (with coppery color inside) and black supratympanic and groin bars. The forearm is reddish-brown and the arm is brown with a black bar. The thighs each have three black bars and the shanks have three dark brown crossbars. The venter is purple with white markings. (Estrada and Hedges 1996).

Distribution and Habitat

Country distribution from AmphibiaWeb's database: Cuba

	View distribution map in BerkeleyMapper.
	View Bd and Bsal data (1 records).

This species is endemic to Cuba and it is found only in isolated localities of the Sagua-Baracoa mountains, in eastern Cuba. It occurs between 300-600 m above sea level. This is a terrestrial species found in the leaf litter of rainforests and secondary hardwood forests (Estrada and Hedges 1996).

Life History, Abundance, Activity, and Special Behaviors
Males vocalize during both day and night from concealed locations on the forest floor. Calls consist of a series of 4-13 evenly spaced “chirps”, somewhat similar to those of E. intermedius. The dominant frequency is about 3.8-3.9 kHz. Males apparently attend the clutch and provide parental care; one individual was captured along with six eggs and a female, within a hole formed by the decayed canter of a tree fern about 10 cm above the ground (Estrada and Hedges 1996).

Trends and Threats
The major threat is habitat destruction and deforestation, as a result of the impacts of subsistence farming and logging. Mining may also pose a threat to this species (Hedges and Diaz 2004).

Possible reasons for amphibian decline

General habitat alteration and loss
Habitat modification from deforestation, or logging related activities
Intensified agriculture or grazing
Mining

Comments
Eleutherodactylus tetajulia is a member of the subgenus Euhyas (Heinicke et al., 2007).

Etymology- From the Spanish, a noun in apposition, referring to Las Tetas de Julia (the breasts of Julia), two prominent peaks near the type locality (Estrada and Hedges 1996).

References

Estrada, A.R. and Hedges, S.B. (1996). ''A new frog of the genus Eleutherodactylus from eastern Cuba (Anura: Leptodactylidae).'' Herpetologica, 52(3), 435-439.

Hedges, S. B. and Díaz, L. M. (2004). Eleutherodactylus tetajulia. In: IUCN 2007. 2007 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. http://www.iucnredlist.org/. Downloaded on 11 November 2007.

Heinicke, M. P., Duellman, W. E., Hedges, S. B. (2007). ''Major Caribbean and Central American frog faunas originated by ancient oceanic dispersal.'' Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 104(24), 10092-10097.

Species Account Citation: AmphibiaWeb 2008 Eleutherodactylus tetajulia: Cuban Stripeless Leaf-litter Frog <https://amphibiaweb.org/species/5592> University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. Accessed Oct 11, 2024.

Citation: AmphibiaWeb. 2024. <https://amphibiaweb.org> University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. Accessed 11 Oct 2024.

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