Description
Pseudophilautus sirilwijesundarai is a moderate sized frog with snout vent length of 22.3 mm in males and 32.5 mm in females. dorsal head and interorbital space convex; lateral snout and canthus rostralis rounded; loreal region concave; internarial space flat; fringe on fingers and vomerine ridge present; lingual papilla, nuptial pad and calcar absent; snout shagreen, with prominent dermal fold; interorbital area tubercular; side of head weakly shagreen; anterior dorsum shagreen with few tubercles; posterior dorsum and throat shagreen; upper flank areolate; dorsal thigh smooth; chest weakly granular; underside of thigh granular; supernumerary tubercles present on foot (Wickramasinghe et al. 2013).

Colour in life: Dorsum dark brown with a green tinge and maroon blotches fairly symmetrically placed, snout and interorbital area maroon demarcating a triangle; lateral maroon patch below eye, flank yellowish white blotches on maroon; limbs dorsally olive green, fore limbs, hind limbs, fingers and toes with prominent maroon cross bands; ventral side off-white with brown blotches, throat area, hands and feet dark brown (Wickramasinghe et al.,2013).

Colour in alcohol: Colour pattern remains the same with a little fading, olive green changes to yellow (Wickramasinghe et al., 2013).

Distribution and Habitat

Country distribution from AmphibiaWeb's database: Sri Lanka

View distribution map in BerkeleyMapper.

Pseudophilautus sirilwijesundarai is found in Sripada (Peak Wilderness), Ratnapura District, Sabaragamuwa Province, Sri Lanka at elevations of 1600 – 1700 m (Wickramasinghe et al. 2013; Batuwita et al. 2019).

Life History, Abundance, Activity, and Special Behaviors
It is found in montane cloud forests. They were found in the canopy on trees alongside mosses, from about 10 m tall tree branches (Wickramasinghe et al. 2013).

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

Comments
Pseudophilautus sirilwijesundarai is named after Siril Wijesundara (Director, Royal Botanical Gardens, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka), in great appreciation of his service to the country (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 2022 Pseudophilautus sirilwijesundarai: Siril Wijesundara's Shrub Frog <https://amphibiaweb.org/species/7992> University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. Accessed Jan 22, 2025.

Citation: AmphibiaWeb. 2025. <https://amphibiaweb.org> University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. Accessed 22 Jan 2025.

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