Description
Known only from the female holotype, 17.5 mm SVL. Stout body. Dorsally convex head, with snout rounded in profile and snout angle of about 101 degrees (category 7 of Manamendra-Arachchi and Pethiyagoda 2005), sharp canthi, concave loreal region, concave internarial space, and convex interorbital region. Tympanum slightly discernible, with prominent supratymapnic fold. Pineal ocellus not present. Vomerine ridge and lingual papilla absent. No lateral dermal fringe on fingers. Toes medially webbed, with Toe V having a weakly developed dermal fringe on the outer edge. Supernumerary tubercles present on foot. Tarsal fold and tubercle are lacking. Dorsum smooth except for a few scattered glandular warts. Snout, interorbital area, side of head, and dorsal areas of forelimb, thigh, shank and foot are all smooth with a few scattered glandular warts. Upper flank has glandular warts. Lower flank is granular. Throat is smooth and granular. Mid-chest is granular but otherwise the chest is smooth. Venter and ventral thigh are rough and granular (Manamendra-Arachchi and Pethiyagoda 2005).

Color in preservative: Light brown dorsum, with two dark-brown patches on interorbital region, some small brown patches on the dorsal surface of the head and two longitudinal dark-brown markings on the back. Upper lip brown with light patches. Flanks light brown with darker patches. Inguinal area paler brown. Limbs crossbarred. Posterior thigh and ventral surfaces of thigh dark brown. Throat and margins, chest, and belly dark brown (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). The specimen label says "Taralanda" which is probably the name of a former tea plantation in the Central Province (Manamendra-Arachchi and Pethiyagoda 2005).

Life History, Abundance, Activity, and Special Behaviors
Known only from the holotype; Pseudophilautus rugatus has not been recorded since its description (Ahl 1927) despite extensive searches and is presumed extinct. it is believed to have been a direct developer, like other species in the genus Pseudophilautus (Stuart et al. 2008)

Trends and Threats
Habitat loss is likely to have been the major factor in the population decrease and eventual extinction of this species (Stuart et al. 2008).

Possible reasons for amphibian decline

General habitat alteration and loss

References

Ahl, E. (1927). ''Zur Systematik der asiatischen Arten der Froschgattung Rhacophorus.'' Sitzungsberichte der Gesellschaft Naturforschender, 1927, 35-47.

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 2010 Pseudophilautus rugatus <https://amphibiaweb.org/species/6481> University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. Accessed Jan 2, 2025.

Citation: AmphibiaWeb. 2025. <https://amphibiaweb.org> University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. Accessed 2 Jan 2025.

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