Cesar Barrio-Amoros

• Research Director at Doc Frog Expeditions.

We review the taxonomy of Atractus species distributed continuously along northeastern portions of the Andes of Colombia (= Eastern Cordillera), Sierra of Perijá on the Colombia–Venezuela border, and Cordillera of Mérida in northwestern Venezuela. We assess the taxonomic status of 29 species names on the basis of congruence between quantitative and...

Review of Ophiophagy by Leptodeira (Dipsadidae) and a case of Leptodeira ornata eating Leptophis bocourti

Here the author makes a personal approach of his life standing interest in the genus Atelopus.

The article (in Spanish) explains how important is the citizen science to make discoveries like the "resurrection" of another Lazarus species, Atelopus carbonerensis, in the Venezuelan Andes.

This is the current (up to 2023) situation of one of the most threatened anurans, Atelopus varius, which passed from 166 localities to the only 8 last known.

The documented species of the genus Ecnomiohyla in Mexico currently include Ecnomiohyla echinata and Ecnomiohyla valancifer. This note highlights a noteworthy expansion of distribution within the Nahá Flora and Fauna Protection Area (ANPFF) involving a species called Ecnomiohyla minera, previously documented in Guatemala and Belize. This encounter...

We present a taxonomic review and systematic revision of the Eyelash Palm-Pitviper Bothriechis schlegelii (Berthold, 1846) based on examination of 400 museum specimens, a phylogeographic analysis of 818 locality records, and 80 individuals sampled for molecular characters. We find morphological and phylogenetic support for five new species of Bothr...

Scinax altae is a treefrog hitherto known to occur only in Panama. Herein, we report two populations referred as S. altae by morphology, bioacoustics and genetics in the southeastern Pacific region of Costa Rica. We present new maps showing the geographic distribution and hiatus between S. staufferi and S. altae. In addition, we aimed to redescribe...

New species of Eleutherodactylus of the unistrigatus species group is described from the summit of Cerro Marahuaka, Estado Amazonas, Venezuela. The new species is easily distinguished from other southern Venezuelan Eleutherodactylus by its indistinct tympanum, absence of calcars, indistinct metatarsal tubercles, smooth dorsal skin, weak fringes on...

Reportamos la localidad más al sur de L. septentrionalis polysticta dentro de Honduras y la cuarta localidad para la vertiente del Pacífico en este país; en adición discutimos ciertos aspectos taxonómicos y biogeográficos.

Scinax is the most species-rich genus of Neotropical treefrogs, with 129 currently recognized species divided between two major clades, the S. catharinae and S. ruber clades. The S. catharinae clade includes 52 species currently placed in the S. perpusillus and S. catharinae groups, whereas the S. ruber clade is composed of 77 species, 13 of which...

Atelopus carbonerensis, a long disappeared species of harlequin toad, has been spotted again after more than 25 years by citizen science in Venezuela.

Pristimantis ornatissimus is found in Colombia for first time

—During a recent expedition to five protected areas in Panama (Parque Nacional Volcán Barú andReserva Forestal Fortuna, Chiriquí Province; Parque Nacional Santa Fe, Veraguas Province; Parque Nacional Darien,Rancho Frío, Darien Province; and Mamoni Valley Private Reserve, Panama Province), we observed 95 species ofamphibians and reptiles (51 amphibi...

We describe two consecutive breeding aggregations of Trachycephalus vermiculatus in Costa Rica, and describe a novel release call.

Cochranella granulosa was described by Taylor (1949) from “Los Diamantes, one mile south of Guápiles, Costa Rica”, on the Caribbean versant of the Talamanca range of Central America. Here we report a second locality of based on photographic evidence from Colombia, plus two other photographic registers from iNaturalist, and a third individual of the...

Pristimantis taeniatus (Boulenger 1912) is a relatively common terrarana in Colombia and Panama, recently recorded from Costa Rica. However, the taxonomic status and the phylogenetic position of the Costa Rican population are currently unknown. Here, we report P. taeniatus from two new localities in Costa Rica, describe the advertisement call and a...

Boletin Asociacion Herpetologica Española. 2021. 32(1) 151- 155. En la presente nota se describe el hallazgo en Barcelona (España) de un ejemplar de esta especie, transportado de modo accidental mediante transportes de carga de materiales de construcción desde Bogotá (Colombia). Esta representa la primera vez que se describe un traslado de tal dis...

The Variable Harlequin Toad (Atelopus varius) has suffered extensive declines in Panama and Costa Rica.Of 169 previously documented populations, only seven are known to survive. Herein we review the status of the survivingpopulations of this species in Costa Rica, describing the results of random visits to five of the seven survivingpopulations dur...

We describe the call of the female hylid frog Ecnomiohyla sukia, and the male call of Craugastor megacephalus from Costa Rica.

Gymnophthalmids are a highly diverse group of Neotropical lizards and its species richness is still in process of discovery. The incorporation of molecular evidence and a noticeable increase in taxon and geographic sampling in systematic studies has led to the description of numerous new genera and species of gymnophthalmids (particularly in Cercos...

Dendropsophus mathiassoni is widely distributed in the savannas of the Colombian Llanos, with its northernmost and easternmost records located on the riverbanks of the Arauca and Orinoco Rivers, respectively. Its presence in the Llanos region of Venezuela was already anticipated, but until now its occurrence had not been corroborated. We here repor...

En una manera divulgativa, se acerca esta maravillosa especie, el vertebrado más tóxico del planeta, a una audiencia popular.

En este artículo, nuestro objetivo es aproximar la víbora más grande del mundo al público general. Tratamos la taxonomía, distribución, etimología, leyendas, historia natural (reproducción, defensa, comportamiento, actividad, presas y depredadores) y dirigimos por primera vez problemas de conservación, sugiriendo a Lachesis melanocephala como críti...

En este artículo, nuestro objetivo es aproximar la víbora más grande del mundo al público general. Tratamos la taxonomía, distribución, etimología, leyendas, historia natural (reproducción, defensa, comportamiento, actividad, presas y depredadores) y dirigimos por primera vez problemas de conservación, sugiriendo a Lachesis melanocephala como críti...

I report a new locality for U, myersi and discuss its distribution, deleting it from the Panamanian herpetofauna.

We herein provide an overview of the bushmasters (Lachesis spp.), the longest vipers in the world. We address taxonomy, distribution, etymology, lore, natural history (reproduction, defense, behavior, activity, prey and predators), and, for the first time, conservation issues, suggesting that Lachesis melanocephala is a Critically Endangered specie...

In this note I describe a novel subaquatic sleeping behavior in B. basiliscus.

The relationships of the hyline tribe Dendropsophini remain poorly studied, with most published analyses dealing with few of the species groups of Dendropsophus. In order to test the monophyly of Dendropsophini, its genera, and the species groups currently recognized in Dendropsophus, we performed a total evidence phylogenetic analysis. The molecul...

We show an empirical case of problem solving in the poison frog Dendrobates auratus

We describe the rediscovery of Atelopus mindoensis in Ecuador.

A popular approach on the most toxic vertebrate on the Planet, the golden poison dart frog Phyllobates terribilis from Chocoan Colombia.

Abstract.—Presented is an annotated checklist of the amphibians of Venezuela, current as of December 2018. The last comprehensive list (Barrio-Amorós 2009c) included a total of 333 species, while the current catalogue lists 387 species (370 anurans, 10 caecilians, and seven salamanders), including 28 species not yet described or properly identified...

Considerable confusion surrounds the taxonomy of snakes in the genus Leptodeira, which contains 12 currently recognized species. Herein I review the genus and recognize 15 species based on previously published morphological and genetic data. Easily recognized traits can be used to identify Costa Rican species of Leptodeira, and taxonomic insights i...

El grupo "Colostethus" ruthveni es un linaje endémico en la Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (SNSM), un macizo del noroccidente de Colombia. Este grupo incluye a la especie nominal (del sector septentrional y noroccidental de la SNSM) y un morfo indescrito ("Colostethus sp. ruthveni-like", sector suroriental). Aquí, describimos el llamado de anuncio de...

The “Colostethus” ruthveni group represents an endemic dendrobatid lineage in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (SNSM), an isolated massif in northeastern Colombia. This group has a complex taxonomic history and comprises the nominal species, from the northern and northwestern sector of the SNSM and an undescribed morph provisionally named as “Colos...

Gymnophthalmus represents a challenging group for systematics of microteiid lizards. Due to scarcity of exemplars and molecular data, the taxonomy of the genus has been unstable, and six of its eight species are considered part of a poorly-delimited complex of unisexual and bisexual species. Unnamed populations of red-tailed Gymnophthalmus from sav...

We review the diet of Trachyboa boulengeri (Tropidophidae) in natural conditions.

Presentamos un inventario de anuros en la zona de amortiguamiento del Parque Internacional La Amistad, realizado por personas locales. Discutimos los resultados en torno al marco de Ciencia Ciudadana y su aplicación para estudios de anfibios, así como el nivel de incertidumbre de la identificación de especies por fotografías. Registramos 15 especie...

DOI: 10.1111/zsc.12273; ORIGINAL ARTICLE: Reconquering the water: Evolution and systematics of South and Central American aquatic lizards (Gymnophthalmidae) Sergio Marques-Souza1 | Ivan Prates2 | Antoine Fouquet3 | Agustín Camacho1 | Philippe J. R. Kok4 | Pedro M. S. Nunes5 | Francisco Dal Vechio1 | Renato Sousa Recoder1 | Nathalia Mejia1 | Mauro T...

The Cercosaurini tribe stands out from other Gymnophthalmidae lizards for including several species with morphological adaptations to aquatic lifestyle (“Crocodile- Like Morphology” – CLM). Recent molecular phylogenies of Cercosaurini demonstrated the paraphyly of CLM species, implicitly suggesting that adaptations to the aquatic life evolved more...

Background Advancements in portable scientific instruments provide promising avenues to expedite field work in order to understand the diverse array of organisms that inhabit our planet. Here, we tested the feasibility for in situ molecular analyses of endemic fauna using a portable laboratory fitting within a single backpack, in one of the world's...

The frog Pristimantis marmoratus was originally described as Hylodes marmoratus by George A. Boulenger in 1900 based on a single specimen reported to have been collected at the foot of Mount Roraima in Guyana in 1898. We herein discuss the exact location of the type locality of P. marmoratus and provide a redescription of the species based on new m...

To date, only one record of mineral licking exists for sloths (i.e., Choloepus didactylus) from Ecuador. Here we present the first record of mineral licking for C. hoffmanni from a tropical rainforest in Costa Rica. This behavior has been mainly associated with detoxification in herbivores, but no evidence exists for such needs in sloths. Hasta la...

Describimos los llamados de advertencia (LA), cortejo (LC) y algunos aspectos sobre la historia natural de Colosthetus ruthveni, un dendrobátido endémico de la Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (SNSM), basado en 89 cantos de 21 machos audibles (MA) procedentes del noroccidente de la SNSM. El LA de C. ruthveni dura en promedio 8,6s y está compuesto por 3...

Advancements in portable scientific instruments provide promising avenues to expedite field work in order to understand the diverse array of organisms that inhabit our planet. Here we tested the feasibility for in situ molecular analyses of endemic fauna using a portable laboratory fitting within a single backpack, in one of the world’s most imperi...

We describe three new aberrrant patterns from two localities among the OOphaga pumilio distribution in Costa Rica.

I provide Natrural history asserts and observations about 6 species of neotropical Treeboas (Corallus) in different countries: Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru and Costa Rica.

We explore southern Costa Rica and Western Panama searching for the most beautiful of their frogs, the poison frogs.

We report a juvenile individual of Clelia clelia subduing and swallowing a larger specimen of Leptodeira

We report a juvenile mussurana (Clelia clelia) preying on a larger snake (Leptodeira)

The stream-breeding frog Hyloscirtus lascinius is known from a few localities on the Eastern versant of the Cordillera Oriental of Colombia and Tamá massif in Colombia and Venezuela. It has also been reported from Cordillera de Mérida in Venezuela but without precise localities or voucher specimens. Herein we report H. lascinius from the Sierra de...

Describimos el llamado de cortejo de Colosthetus ruthveni Kaplan, 1997, un dendrobátido endémico de la Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (SNSM), basados en ocho cantos de dos machos vocalizantes (MV) procedentes de Minca, cuenca media del Rio Gaira, noroccidente de la SNSM. El canto de C. ruthveni tiene una duración promedio de 8.6 s y está compuesto po...

Plectrohyla avia is a poorly known Critically Endangered species from Southern Mexico and Guatemala.Herein we describe its aquatic reproductive behavior, including underwater calling and odd adaptations for aquatic life. This is the first Hylid species (aside Pseudinae) to be adapted for aquatic breeding.

Herein we catalogue all geckos (Gekkonidae, Phyllodactylidae and Sphaerodactylidae) collected by Roberto Donoso-Bar-ros in Venezuela between 1963 and 1964, deposited in the Universidad de Concepción in Chile. Donoso-Barros did not provide detailed descriptions of two species of Gonatodes named by him, despite both being valid species. We take the o...

We report the second known locality for the salamander Nyctanolis pernix in Mexico, and fifth locality in the world.

Resumen Se confirma la presencia de la rana Leptodactylus rhodomystax (Leptodactylidae) en Venezuela y se amplía la distribución geográfica de Anomaloglossus verbeeksnyderorum (Dendrobatidae), Hypsiboas alemani (Hylidae) y Tachiramantis prolixodiscus (Craugastoridae), previamente registradas en el país.

The Rhinella granulosa group consists of 13 species of toads distributed throughout open areas of South America and Panama. In this paper we perform a phylogenetic analysis considering all but one species of the group, employing five nuclear and four mitochondrial genes, for up to 7910 bp per specimen. Separate phylogenetic analyses under direct op...

An overview of the complicated Dendrobatids in Venezuela.