Frog twister

This is Pristimantis rivetti

A new addition to our project as of last night. We found this male serenading to the night perched atop a bamboo frond overtop the creek in the mood for love. It you could look close underneath you could see his little air sack. Processing him and the others from last night I snapped some great shots color coded as you can see. Lining them up against a color chart like this makes it easier to describe them. Frogs exhibit so much dimorphism, a fancy science word for color change, that without carefully comparing notes and looking for tell tale species clues its easy to mislabel them. There are often many different color morphs (schemes) exhibited for the same species making it difficult and confusing to narrow down to one and the same. Every once in a while though you find a frog that IS different. The tell tales signs are not the same, something is different, novel, a new species. It still happens and has happened here, one of the most biodiverse parts of the planet and a hotspot for amphibian´s, especially in remote little visited valleys like our own.

No new species this time but many amazing creatures full of character and magic. Walking away from this weekend all of us, intrigued beyond description by these little otherwordly creatures. A glimpse into a frog´s eye view of the world.