No abstract

The Colombian amphibian fauna is among the richest known in the world, with about 20 species of salamanders (order Caudata), 35 of the limbless caecilians (order Gymnophiona), and more than 700 species of frogs and toads (order Anura) recorded from localities within the country. The potential effects of exposure to glyphosate on amphibians arising from production of illegal crops (coca) were examined. The analysis was based on (1) behavior and ecology of species and (2) proximities of actual museum records to localities in which illegal crops are being grown and the subset of those that have been sprayed with glyphosate. Based on data on the location of amphibians collected in Colombia, records were obtained for 193 species (28% of the national diversity) of frogs and toads found in localities within 10 km of areas where coca is grown. Further analyses with ARC MAP software allowed for measurement of the direct distance separating collection locations for frogs, known coca fields, and areas where aerial spraying was being conducted. Records in or near coca fields included data for 11 of 13 families of frogs and toads known to be present in Colombia. Only Ceratophryidae and Pipidae were not reported from these locations and appear not to be at risk. For eight species (Dendrobates truncatus, Craugastor raniformis, Pristimantis gaigeae, Smilisca phaeota, Elachistocleis ovale, Hypsiboas crepitans, Trachycephalus venulosus, and Pseudis paradoxa) selected to represent several habitat preferences and life-cycle strategies, large areas of their distributions lie outside coca production regions and their populations as a whole are at low risk. For a limited number of species that barely enter Colombian territory, the consequences of coca production may be more serious and may have placed several species of frogs at risk. These include Ameerega bilingua, Dendropsophus bifurcus, Pristimantis colomai, P. degener, P. diadematus, P. quaquaversus, P. variabilis, and Trachycephalus jordani. Other species may also be at risk but exact numbers are unknown since few investigations were undertaken in these areas during the past 30 yr. The main ranges for these species were assumed to be in Ecuador.

The genus Eleutherodactylus contains a large number of species and species groups that have had a notoriously difficult taxonomy. Morphometric analyses open new approaches and perspectives to evaluate morphological characters in the taxonomic context. Morphometric and statistical analyses were applied to differentiate taxonomically seven Eleutherodactylus species that co-occur in an Andean cloud forest (six of these belonging to the unistrigatus group). Fifty one characters were evaluated to determine those characters that best separate the species and species groups. Using morphometric analyses we were able to discriminate among species and species groups defined a priori. Qualitative characters, particularly the colour patterns, allowed recognising the juveniles of two groups; however, the discriminant analyses could not differentiate them. Quantitative characters allowed easy recognition of those species with a large sample size. Ten of the eleven quantitative variables showed a good discriminatory power: Linear combination of tympanum-eye distance and eyelid width, tympanum-eye distance, tympanum diameter, phalangeal width of finger IV, head length, eyelid width, head width, eye diameter, snout-vent length, and interorbital distance. Distance between eye and nostril was excluded from the discriminant model because of its low discriminatory power. Thus, morphometric and qualitative variables proved be useful in differentiating among Eleutherodactylus species and species groups at adult and juvenile levels.

We studied the species of amphibians from Serranía de Las Quinchas, in the mid Magdalena Valley region of Colombia, comparing the data from a recent fieldwork with museum records and literature. We present a list of 50 species of amphibians (Anura and Caudata). In our survey, we recorded 36 species, of which 6 represented new records. One of the most interesting record is that of the genus Oedipina, since this is the first time the genus is recorded for the Cordillera Oriental. The number of species is what would be expected in a humid tropical forest of the mid-Magdalena river valley, given the co-occurrence of amphibian faunas distributed in the sub-Andean, Caribbean, and Chocó biogeographic regions.