Description
Adult female holotype 44.8 mm SVL. Elongated body, with dorsally convex head and flat interorbital and internarial regions. Discernible, oblique tympanum with prominent supratympanic fold. Snout angled at 100 degrees (category 6 of Manamendra-Arachchi and Pethiyagoda 2005), truncated in lateral profile, with sharp canthi and concave lores. Lingual papilla lacking. Calcar lacking. Vomerine teeth present with about 10 small teeth on vomerine ridge. Pineal ocellus lacking. Supernumerary tubercles present on palm and sole. Fingers with lateral dermal fringe, rudimentary webbing between Fingers I and II. Toes medially webbed, and having weakly developed fringe on the outer edge of Toe V from the toe tip to mid-foot. Tarsal fold and tubercle lacking. Shagreened dorsum and upper flank. Smoothly granular throat and chest, roughly granular belly and underside of thigh, granular lower flank. Dorsal surfaces of thigh, shank and foot are smooth (Manamendra-Arachchi and Pethiyagoda 2005).

Color in preservative: Head and body brown on dorsal surfaces. Dark brown interorbital bar. W-shaped dark brown marking on anterior dorsum. Limbs light brown with incomplete darker brown crossbanding. Posterior thigh light brown with dark brown patches. Upper lip light brown while the lower lip is yellow. Upper flank dark brown, lower flank pale yellow. Throat pale buff with brown margins. Webbing is dark brown (Manamendra-Arachchi and Pethiyagoda 2005).

Distribution and Habitat

Country distribution from AmphibiaWeb's database: Sri Lanka

View distribution map in BerkeleyMapper.

Pseudophilautus dimbullae was endemic to Sri Lanka, from the type locality "Queenwood Estate, Dimbullen, Ceylon", which is located at 1,500 m asl. The habitat that this species required is not known (Stuart et al. 2008); there is no mention of the habitat in the original paper (Shreve 1940).

Life History, Abundance, Activity, and Special Behaviors
This species is known only from the preserved holotype, collected in 1933 and described by Shreve (1940). It has not been rediscovered despite extensive searches and is presumed extinct. Breeding is believed to be through direct development (Stuart et al. 2008).

Trends and Threats
The reasons for extinction are not known, but habitat loss is thought to have been the major factor (Stuart et al. 2008).

Possible reasons for amphibian decline

General habitat alteration and loss

References

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.

Shreve, B. (1940). ''A new Rhacophorus and a new Philautus from Ceylon.'' Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 53, 105-107.

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 dimbullae <https://amphibiaweb.org/species/6482> University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. Accessed Sep 12, 2024.

Citation: AmphibiaWeb. 2024. <https://amphibiaweb.org> University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. Accessed 12 Sep 2024.

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