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   - Photo via Cristian Gallego -
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Published on Wednesday,
January 25, 2023
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff and wire services
The first record of a Plump Frog (Elachistocleis pearsei) in Costa Rica by the researcher Gustavo Salazar Cortés found one individual in his garden near a dirt road and a swamp in Mango de Laurel in Corredores Canton in Puntarenas Province.
According to the Costa Rica Wild organization, the frog was not collected but photographic vouchers were deposited in the University of Texas Digital Catalogue.
The frog clearly corresponds to the Plump Frog species by having morphological characteristics such as a body oval, a head small and triangular, a snout pointed in dorsal view, eyes small and dorsolateral, arms moderately robust, a belly, chest, and underparts of arms and hind limbs covered with large orange spots among others.
This frog was located 53.6 km west of the nearest previously located for this species in Los Algarrobos District in Chiriquí in Panama.
"We revisited the area in search of additional individuals. Despite an intensive search, we could not find any, as the weather was quite dry (two days without any rain)," said the researchers in its report.
However, experts were able to assess the habitat, which consists largely of Oil Palm mono-culture and associated human habitations in the small villages of Laurel and Mango where oil palm workers live.
"The habitat is completely altered but species in the genus Elachistocleis are known to tolerate contaminated or altered water," they added.
The frog, is the second most speciose microhylid genus in the Neotropics, with 21 currently recognized species; only Chiasmocleis Méhely with 36 species, has more.
Plump Frog occurs mainly in South America and ranges from Central Argentina, southeastern Brazil, and Uruguay north to Trinidad, Venezuela, northern Colombia, western Ecuador and western Panama.
The Plump Frog is one of many rare animal species found in the country. Recently, a new study by researchers of the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology (OEB) at Harvard University described five new deep-sea squat lobster species found in Costa Rica.
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