Two New Species of Poison Dart Frogs Discovered in Colombia

December 2007. Two new species of frog have been discovered in the Central Cordillera of Colombia by Alonso Quevedo from ProAves and Oscar Gallego from Tolima University. The frogs were discovered in July, 2006, when the research team was looking for endangered bird species in the Central Mountain Range. The new frogs have been named Ranitomeya tolimense and Ranitomeya doriswansoni in recent months.

Ranitomeya tolimense is mostly yellow, and Ranitomeya doriswansoni is black and red, and has a short fifth toe.

Alonso Quevedo, President of ProAves, said ‘There is a great concern about the conservation of these frogs and of many other species of flora and fauna in this region, since there are not any protected areas here, and there is a high pressure on the ecosystems due to the expansion of coffee crops.’

The description of Ranitomeya tolimense was jointly carried out with experts Manuel Hernando Bernal and Víctor Fabio Luna-Mora, who, together with Óscar Gallego, are members of the Research Group on Zoology at the Herpetology and Eco-physiology Laboratory in Tolima University. The article was published on November 14, 2007 by Zootaxa Magazine.

The description of Ranitomeya doriswansoni was jointly carried out in 2006 with José Vicente Rueda-Almonacid, Marco Rada, Santiago J. Sánchez-Pacheco and Álvaro Andrés Velásquez-Álvarez, from Conservation International. It was also published by Zootaxa Magazine.

Source:
http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/colombia-frogs872.html