Hyloscirtus tolkieni

Hyloscirtus tolkieni, commonly known as the Río Negro stream frog, is a species of frog in the family Hylidae. It is endemic to the Andes Mountains in Ecuador, where it has been observed at 3190 meters above sea level.[1][2][3][4]

Hyloscirtus tolkieni
Scientific classification edit
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Amphibia
Order: Anura
Family: Hylidae
Genus: Hyloscirtus
Species:
H. tolkieni
Binomial name
Hyloscirtus tolkieni
Sánchez-Nivicela, Falcón-Reibán, and Cisneros-Heredia, 2023
Map showing the type locality of Hyloscirtus tolkieni at the Río Negro-Sopladora National Park, province of Morona Santiago, Ecuador.

The adult female frog measures 64.9 mm in snout-vent length.[3] It is gray-green in color with yellow and black marks. The iris of the eye is pink with a black rim. There are yellow and black spots on the belly and flanks.[1] It has some fringed skin on the front and back toes.[3]

These frogs live in riparian habitats. The tadpoles live in cracks in the rocks underwater. The adult frogs appear nocturnal animals. Scientists have seen them on high tree branches not far from the water.[1]

The scientists who published the first description of this species named this frog after author J.R.R. Tolkien, explaining that they chose the name because "[t]he amazing colours of the new species evoke the magnificent creatures that seem to only exist in fantasy worlds."[3] They paraphrase The Hobbit in the introduction to their paper:[1]

In a stream in the forest there lived a Hyloscirtus. Not a nasty, dirty stream, with spoor of contamination and a muddy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy stream with nothing in it to perch on or to eat: it was a Hyloscirtus-stream, and that means environmental quality.

References
  1. John Virata (February 16, 2023). "Hyloscirtus tolkieni, A New Stream Frog Species Named After J.R.R. Tolkien". Reptiles Magazine. Retrieved February 19, 2023.
  2. Frost, Darrel R. "Hyloscirtus tolkieni Sánchez-Nivicela, Falcón-Reibán, and Cisneros-Heredia, 2023". Amphibian Species of the World, an Online Reference. Version 6.0. American Museum of Natural History, New York. Retrieved February 19, 2023.
  3. Juan C. Sánchez-Nivicela; José M. Falcón-Reibán; Diego F. Cisneros-Heredia (19 January 2023). "A new stream treefrog of the genus Hyloscirtus (Amphibia, Hylidae) from the Río Negro-Sopladora National Park, Ecuador". ZooKeys (full text) (1141): 75–92. doi:10.3897/zookeys.1141.90290. Retrieved February 19, 2023.
  4. "Hyloscirtus tolkieni Sánchez Nivicela, Falcón & Cisneros-Heredia, 2023". AmphibiaWeb. University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved February 19, 2023.
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