Mexico Herpetology » Craugastor

Craugastor alfredi

triprion — Fri, 20 May 2005 02:13:05 +0000

ALFRED’S RAIN FROG
Craugastor alfredi – Boulenger 1898

IDENTIFICATION:
DISTRIBUTION:

HABITAT:
NATURAL HISTORY:
TAXONOMY:
In the Eleutherodactylus alfredi group as defined by Lynch and Duellman (1997).
TYPE:
PERSONAL NOTES:
I have no personal experience with this species in the field.
CONSERVATION STATUS:
REFERENCES:
Campbell, J. A., W. W. Lamar, and D. M. Hillis. 1989. A New Species of Diminutive Eleutherodactylus (Leptodactylidae) from Oaxaca, Mexico. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 102:491-499.
Canseco-Marquez, L. and E. N. Smith. 2004. A Diminutive Species of Eleutherodactylus (Anura: Leptodactylidae), of the alfredi Group, from the Sierra Negra of Puebla, Mexico. Herpetologica 60(3):358-363.

Craugastor amniscolus

triprion — Thu, 19 May 2005 02:16:42 +0000

GRIJALVA STREAM FROG
Craugastor amniscolus – Campbell & Savage 2000

IDENTIFICATION:
DISTRIBUTION:

HABITAT:
NATURAL HISTORY:
TAXONOMY:
In the Eleutherodactylus rugulosus group as defined by Lynch and Duellman (1997).
TYPE:
PERSONAL NOTES:
I have no personal experience with this species in the field.
CONSERVATION STATUS:
REFERENCES:

Craugastor augusti augusti

triprion — Tue, 17 May 2005 08:18:06 +0000

Adult, 800′, Tamaulipas, Mexico

Adult, 800′, Tamaulipas, Mexico

EASTERN BARKING FROG
Craugastor augusti – Duges 1879
Craugastor augusti augusti – Duges 1879

IDENTIFICATION:
DISTRIBUTION:
HABITAT:

Cave Wall Habitat, Tamaulipas, Mexico

Cloud Forest Habitat, 3,200′, Queretaro, Mexico

Cloud Forest Habitat, 2,500′, San Luis Potosi, Mexico

Mountain Karst Habitat, 6,000′, San Luis Potosi, Mexico

NATURAL HISTORY:
TAXONOMY:
TYPE:
PERSONAL NOTES:
I have found this species on many occasions. My first experience with C. a. augusti was in a small cave in southern Tamaulipas (photos above); since then I have heard these frogs vocalizing many times (three of these precise localities are pictured above). At another Tamaulipan locale, I flipped several juvenile augusti in a rock quarry and found an adult on the adjacent dirt road after dark. In 2007, Troy Hibbits and I found a large female C. augusti beneath a rock at the base of a cliff along the Rio Chico, Durango. This observation likely confirms that C. augusti and the closely related C. tarahumarensis do occur in sympatry.
At the above-pictured Queretaro locality both Hyla eximia and Syrrhophus verrucipes were calling on the same night as augusti. In Tamaulipas I found it in the same cave as Syrrhophus dennisi and Lepidophyma sp. nov. In San Luis Potosi they were found on the same hillside as Syrrhophus cystignathoides and Smilisca baudinii. In my opinion, Craugastor augusti has one of the most haunting and magical calls in the anuran world.
CONSERVATION STATUS:
REFERENCES:

Craugastor augusti fuscofemora

triprion — Tue, 17 May 2005 06:40:26 +0000

COAHUILA BARKING FROG
Craugastor augusti – Duges In Brocchi 1879
Craugastor augusti fuscofemora – Zweifel 1956

IDENTIFICATION:
DISTRIBUTION:
HABITAT:
NATURAL HISTORY:
TAXONOMY:
TYPE:
PERSONAL NOTES:
As the range of this subspecies is poorly defined, I am not sure I have heard it call in the wild.
CONSERVATION STATUS:
REFERENCES:

Craugastor augusti latrans

triprion — Tue, 17 May 2005 06:13:41 +0000

Adult, 4,000′, Texas

Adult, 3,000′, Uvalde Co., Texas (2003)

Adult, 3,000′, Uvalde Co., Texas (2003)

TEXAS BARKING FROG
Craugastor augusti – Duges 1879
Craugastor augusti latrans – Cope 1880

IDENTIFICATION:
DISTRIBUTION:
HABITAT:

Chihuahua Desert Habitat, 1,400′, Terrell County, Texas

NATURAL HISTORY:
TAXONOMY:
TYPE:
PERSONAL NOTES:
I have found C. a. latrans several times in Texas – calling from limestone rock faces and foraging in caves, but never in Mexico. Currently, this subspecies is not officially recorded from Mexico, but it surely occurs there. In Texas, it is commonly found in microsympatry with Syrrhophus marnockii.
CONSERVATION STATUS:
REFERENCES:

Craugastor batrachylus

triprion — Tue, 17 May 2005 05:45:22 +0000

MIQUIHUANA ROBBER FROG
Craugastor batrachylus – Taylor 1940

IDENTIFICATION:
DISTRIBUTION:

HABITAT:
NATURAL HISTORY:
TAXONOMY:
TYPE:
PERSONAL NOTES:
I have searched for this species on several occasions near Miquihuana where it was first described. In this region we found both Syrrhophus longipes and S. verrucipes but no frogs that can be diagnosed as C. batrachylus. William Farr found frogs at a cave in the Sierra Grande near Cd. Victoria that Dr. Dixon identified as batrachylus, but I corrected this ID as the frogs were indeed S. longipes. It is quite possible that batrachylus is not a valid taxon.
CONSERVATION STATUS:
REFERENCES:

Craugastor berkenbuschii

triprion — Tue, 17 May 2005 04:17:49 +0000

BERKENBUSCH’S STREAM FROG
Craugastor berkenbuschii – Peters 1870

IDENTIFICATION:
DISTRIBUTION:

HABITAT:
NATURAL HISTORY:
TAXONOMY:
In the Eleutherodactylus rugulosus group as defined by Lynch and Duellman (1997).
TYPE:
PERSONAL NOTES:
Strangely, I have never encountered this species during my numerous nocturnal stream surveys within its range.
CONSERVATION STATUS:
REFERENCES:

Craugastor brocchi

triprion — Tue, 17 May 2005 03:13:47 +0000

GUATEMALA STREAM FROG
Craugastor brocchi – Boulenger In Brocchi 1882

IDENTIFICATION:
DISTRIBUTION:

Craugastor cactorum

triprion — Sun, 15 May 2005 23:19:22 +0000

Adult Male, 4,200′, Cochise County, Arizona

Adult Male, 600′, Colima, Mexico

Adult, 600′, Colima, Mexico

WESTERN BARKING FROG
Craugastor cactorum – Taylor 1939

IDENTIFICATION:
DISTRIBUTION:
HABITAT:
NATURAL HISTORY:
TAXONOMY:
TYPE:
PERSONAL NOTES:
I have found several C. cactorum in the USA and Mexico. In the USA I have found them in the Quinlan and Huachuca Mountains, which are extensions of the Sonoran Madrean “Sky Islands”. In Mexico, my first C. cactorum was a DOR found just to the southeast of San Blas, Nayarit in a low hilly region of boulder-strewn tropical deciduous forest. In 2005 my hunting companions and I found several C. cactorum in some karstic tropical deciduous forest in the hills south of Cd. Colima, Colima.
CONSERVATION STATUS:
REFERENCES:

Craugastor decoratus decoratus

triprion — Sun, 15 May 2005 02:15:19 +0000

Juvenile, 3,873′, San Luis Potosi, Mexico

Subadults in cave, 3,873′, San Luis Potosi, Mexico

ADORNED ROBBER FROG
Craugastor decoratus – Taylor 1942
Craugastor decoratus decoratus – Taylor 1942

IDENTIFICATION:
DISTRIBUTION:

HABITAT:

Cloud Forest Habitat, 3,873′, San Luis Potosi, Mexico

Lower Cloud Forest Habitat, 3,500′, Hidalgo, Mexico

Cloud Forest Habitat, 7,286′, Veracruz, Mexico

NATURAL HISTORY:
TAXONOMY:
In the Eleutherodactylus alfredi group as defined by Lynch and Duellman (1997).
TYPE:
PERSONAL NOTES:
My personal experience with Craugastor decoratus decoratus is limited to a single locality in extreme southwestern San Luis Potosi. In May, 2003 I found this species to be abundant in a series of caves (and their immediate vicinity) located within a modified cloud forest habitat. Adult frogs were vocalizing from protected sites in boulder jumbles at the cave’s entrances, and a few subadult individuals were found beneath flat, mossy rocks immediately outside the caves in a small sotano (sinkhole).
Subsequent visits to this same cave system during the wet season has yielded no Eleutherodactylid frogs. At first I believed this may have been an artifact of a season shift in activity and utilization of this specific microhabitat; however, this may not be the case. It became apparent that between my visits there had been a bonfire crated within the main chamber of one cave. Burned tires, trash and charred bones of cattle had been torched and the result was a thick layer of soot throughout the interior of the cave – both walls and ceiling. Whether or not the toxic smoke from this fire is responsible for the extirpation of both Craugastor decoratus and Chiropterotriton magnipes from this cave system has yet to be determined, but it surely had a devastating effect on a large percentage of the populations of both species. Upcoming field work in 2006 might shed some light on the status of the cave fauna at this particular site.
In 2006 I again returned to this site and found a marked improvement in the appearance of the cave. Much of the accumulated soot had been washed off of the ceiling of the cave by seepage. At one entrance to the cave I found many adult C. d. decoratus, a single S. baudinii and one Lepidophyma occulor. Of greater note was that finally after years of searching, we found one Chiropterotriton magnipes! This was the first magnipes to be found in the wild since the 1970′s. Also of note is that while C. augusti is abundant on adjacent hillsides, we have not yet found evidence of them in this cave system.
CONSERVATION STATUS:
IUCN Red List status for this species is currently “Vulnerable” due to the continued degradation and transformation of it’s cloud forest habitat, and highly fragmented distribution. Mexico protects C. decoratus under the “Special Protection” category.
REFERENCES:
Campbell, J. A., W. W. Lamar, and D. M. Hillis. 1989. A New Species of Diminutive Eleutherodactylus (Leptodactylidae) from Oaxaca, Mexico. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 102:491-499.
Canseco-Marquez, L. and E. N. Smith. 2004. A Diminutive Species of Eleutherodactylus (Anura: Leptodactylidae), of the alfredi Group, from the Sierra Negra of Puebla, Mexico. Herpetologica 60(3):358-363.