Description

Pseudophilautus jagathgunawardanai is a moderate-sized frog with snout vent length of 35.8 – 40.4 mm in females. It can be distinguished from known congeners by the following combination of characters: Body moderate size (snout vent length 35.8–40.4 mm in adult female); head dorsally, loreal region, and interorbital space convex; lateral snout rounded; canthus rostralis sharp; internarial space concave; vomerine teeth, fringe on fingers, rudimentary webbing on fingers, calcar, and nuptial pad absent; lingual papilla present; snout, side of head, anterior dorsum, posterior dorsum, upper flank smooth; interorbital area smooth, with two cross dermal fringes; throat and chest weakly granular; underside of thigh granular; supernumerary tubercles on palm and foot present (Wickramasinghe et al. 2013).

Colour in life: Dorsum light brown with a green tinge, a dark brown circle on snout and a broad dark brown band connecting upper eyelids, dark brown triangular patch pointed towards head on anterior dorsum, another broad dark brown cross band on sacrum, side olive green; limbs light brown with a green tinge, fore limbs, hind limbs, fingers and toes with dark brown cross bands, finger tips off-white; ventral side off-white, throat and chest marbled with brown blotches, belly, hands, feet and webbing darker (Wickramasinghe et al. 2013).

Colour in preservative: Colour darkens, pattern remains, light brown with green tinge changes to dark brown and dark brown patches to maroon, and ventrally off-white colour changes to a light brown (Wickramasinghe et al. 2013).

Distribution and Habitat

Country distribution from AmphibiaWeb's database: Sri Lanka

View distribution map in BerkeleyMapper.

Pseudophilautus jagathgunawardanai is found in Sripada (Peak Wilderness), Ratnapura District, Sabaragamuwa Province, Sri Lanka, at elevations of 1600 - 1750 m (Wickramasinghe et al. 2013; Batuwita et al. 2019).

Life History, Abundance, Activity, and Special Behaviors

This species is found in cloud forests from the forest floor to about 6 m high trees. They are commonly observed on tree trunks with lichens, or were hidden on crevices of barks, or on shrubs (Wickramasinghe et al. 2013).

All frogs of this genus are terrestrial direct developers (Bahir et al. 2005).

Possible reasons for amphibian decline

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

Comments
Pseudophilautus jagathgunawardanai is named after Dr. Jagath Gunawardana, a leading attorney at law and naturalist, in great appreciation of his services towards the conservation of Sri Lanka’s biodiversity and for his efforts on environmental policy making in the island (Wickramasinghe et al. 2013).

As of yet no molecular phylogenetic analysis has been done on this species to determine its relation to other representatives of the same genus.

References

Bahir, M. M., Meegaskumbura, M., Manamendra-Arachchi, K., Schneider, C. J., and Pethiyagoda, R. (2005). ''Reproduction and terrestrial direct development in Sri Lankan shrub frogs (Ranidae: Rhacophorinae: Philautus).'' The Raffles Bulletin of Zoology, 12, 339-350. [link]

Batuwita S, Udugampala S, DeSilva M, Diao J and Edirisinghe U. (2019). "A review of amphibian fauna of Sri Lanka: distribution, recent taxonomic changes and conservation." Journal of Animal Diversity, 1(2), 44-82. [link]

Wickramasinghe, L.J.M., D.R. Vidanapathirana, M.D.G. Rajeev, S.C. Ariyarathne, A.W.A. Chanaka, L.L.D. Priyantha, I.N. Bandara & N. Wickramasinghe (2013). Eight new species of Pseudophilautus (Amphibia, Anura, Rhacophoridae) from Sripada World Heritage Site (Peak Wilderness), a local amphibian hotspot in Sri Lanka. Journal of Threatened Taxa 5(4): 3789–3920 [link]

Species Account Citation: AmphibiaWeb 2021 Pseudophilautus jagathgunawardanai: Jagath Gunawardana's Shrub Frog <https://amphibiaweb.org/species/7987> University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. Accessed Nov 29, 2024.

Citation: AmphibiaWeb. 2024. <https://amphibiaweb.org> University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. Accessed 29 Nov 2024.

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