Frog Blog: Panama Snouted TreefrogScinax altae

Frog Blog: Panama Snouted TreefrogScinax altae

 


The Panama Snouted Tree Frog (Scinax altae) is a small, striped cone-nosed treefrog of the grasslands and marshes of the Pacific versant of Panama and into SW Costa Rica.  It appears to be a southern, isolated sister population of the widespread Stauffer’s Treefrog (S. staufferi) which occurs in Northwestern Costa Rica and north into Mexico.

I recorded these frogs in Central Panama just east of the Tocumen International Airport.   In fact, you can hear a plane taking off in the recording!

It had rained heavily earlier that day and the frogs were calling from some flooded marshy pastureland after dark.   When I first heard their buzzy call, it reminded me of a Scinax species, but I couldn’t match it to any particular species I knew.   It sounded like S. staufferi, but I knew that species wasn’t found in Panama.   I decided they must be Yellow Treefrog species (genus Dendropsophus).

It was only after I got this record uploaded to iNaturalist that another user pointed out the correct species identification.  A little research online and I ended up with another new frog for the lifelist!  And a new Scinax to boot – one of my favorite Neotropical hylids.


Panama Snouted Treefrog call

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© Chris Harrison 2024 


Barrio-Amoros, C., Forero-Cano, A.M., Stuster, R., Batista, A., Canzoneri, M., and Arias, E.  2023.  The presence of Scinax altae (Dunn, 1933) in Costa Rica, with redescription of its advertisement call.  Anartia 37:34-46. 
https://zenodo.org/records/10516165

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