Pablo Palacios Rodríguez

• PhD at Pontifical Xavierian University

True poison-dart frogs (Phyllobates, Dendrobatidae) evolved the ability to secrete batrachotoxins, the most powerful alkaloids known to date. The genus comprises five species whose systematics, at first glance, appeared clear. The most derived clade would include two Colombian species (P. terribilis and P. bicolor) with the highest toxicity, the la...

Species recognition, encompassing mate and competitor recognition, is an important mechanism for establishing and maintaining species boundaries. The effective communication between a sender and a receiver is crucial for species recognition to occur. In this sense, intraspecific signals are expected to evolve coupled to recognition systems to avoid...

Territoriality and parental care are complex reproductive behaviors found in many taxa from insects to mammals. Parental care can be carried out by the female, the male, or both, depending on the species. Territoriality, in contrast, is predominantly displayed by males. Different selective pressures imposed on individuals from the sex performing te...

Sexual dichromatism has provided important information for understanding sexual selection , but its link to reproductive success has received little attention. Poison frogs and their relatives within the superfamily Dendrobatoidea present striking color variation. Despite this variability, evidence of sexual dichromatism in the over 330 species des...

The Terrarana frogs of the genus Pristimantis are acknowledged for their direct development into froglets and for their astonishing species richness, which renders it the anuran genus with the highest number of species. We describe a new species of Pristimantis from the northwestern Andes of Colombia. The species is distributed from an area between...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ej1oPKnGLsE&t Version en Español: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN45T8GayVg&t

Background Poison frogs are known for the outstanding diversity of alkaloid-based chemical defences with promising therapeutic applications. However, current knowledge about chemical defences in Dendrobatoidea superfamily has two sources of bias. First, cryptic, brown-colored species have been neglected in comparison to those conspicuously colored,...

Unfortunately, the original publication of the article has been published with an error in one of the statistical analyses and in Fig. 3. The correct version of this figure and the corresponding statistical analysis is provided with this correction.

Species conservation with fragmented and endangered populations must be based on a prior and thorough knowledge of the structure and population dynamics. Oophaga lehmanni is a dendrobatid species endemic of Colombia and is restricted to its type locality. This species has a fragmented distribution and is considered as critically endangered mainly d...

Lambert et al . question our retrospective and holistic epidemiological assessment of the role of chytridiomycosis in amphibian declines. Their alternative assessment is narrow and provides an incomplete evaluation of evidence. Adopting this approach limits understanding of infectious disease impacts and hampers conservation efforts. We reaffirm th...

The frogs of the genus Pristimantis are recognized for their characteristic reproductive mode and for their incredible diversity of species, becoming the genus with the highest number of species within tetrapod vertebrates. We describe here a new species of Pristimantis from the northwestern Andes of Colombia. The species was found between 2000-250...

The frogs of the genus Pristimantis are recognized for their characteristic reproductive mode and for their incredible diversity of species, becoming the genus with the highest number of species within tetrapod vertebrates. We describe here a new species of Pristimantis from the northwestern Andes of Colombia. The species was found between 2000- 25...

The demise of amphibians? Rapid spread of disease is a hazard in our interconnected world. The chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis was identified in amphibian populations about 20 years ago and has caused death and species extinction at a global scale. Scheele et al. found that the fungus has caused declines in amphibian populations every...

Amphibians are known to possess a wide variety of compounds stored in their skin glands. While significant progress has been made in understanding the chemical diversity and biological relevance of alkaloids, amines, steroids, and peptides, most aspects of the odorous secretions are completely unknown. In this study, we examined sexual variations i...

El Museo de Historia Natural de la universidad de los Andes (ANDES) fue fundado con el propósito de ser un pilar docente y científico asociado a los laboratorios de investigación del Departamento de Ciencias Biológicas de la Universidad de los Andes. Las colecciones que alberga comenzaron por el trabajo del profesor emérito Cornelis Johannes Marink...

Northwestern South America is among the most biodiverse, albeit unexplored, regions of the world. The genus Andinobates is made up of 14 species, all distributed in Northwestern South America (Colombia and Northern Ecuador), and adjacent Panamá. Within the last decade, five species of this genus have been described. In this paper we describe yet an...

Global amphibian declines have been attributed to several factors including the chytrid fungal pathogen, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), that infects hosts’ skin and causes death by inhibiting immune response and impairing osmoregulatory function. Here, we integrate extensive new field data with previously published locality records of Bd in C...

Here we report a dramatic body colour change of a male anole lizard during copulation.