Agalychnis lemur

species of amphibian

The lemur leaf frog or lemur frog (Agalychnis lemur) is a frog that lives in Colombia, Costa Rica, and Panama. Scientists have seen it between 440 and 1600 meters above sea level.[3][1]

Agalychnis lemur
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Amphibia
Order: Anura
Family: Phyllomedusidae
Genus: Agalychnis
Species:
A. lemur
Binomial name
Agalychnis lemur
(Boulenger, 1882)
Synonyms[3]
  • Phyllomedusa lemur (Boulenger, 1882)
  • Agalychnis lemur (Cope, 1887)
  • Phyllomedusa lemur (Nieden, 1923)
  • Phyllomedusa (Agalychnis) lemur (Lutz, 1950)
  • Hylomantis lemur (Faivovich, Haddad, Garcia, Frost, Campbell, and Wheeler, 2005)

Appearance

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The adult male frog is 30 to 41 mm long from nose to rear end, and the adult female frog is 39 to 53 mm long.[1]

This frog changes color. During the day it is pale green. At night, it is red-brown, lavender-brown, or orange. Its belly is white. The irises of its eyes are silver-white.[1]

 
A lemur leaf frog sleeping under a leaf during the day.

During the day, this frog sleeps on the undersides of leaves. It looks for food at night.[1]

Reproduction

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The female frog lays eggs on top of leaves hanging over the water. There are 10-15 eggs in each clutch. The frog may lay three clutches in a night. The eggs are 3 to 3.5 mm in diameter, not including the capsule around each egg. The eggs take one to two weeks to hatch. Then the tadpoles fall off the leaf into the water below.[1]

The tadpoles can grow over 4 cm long. Their bodies are gray and their bellies are yellow-pink.[1]

The tadpoles look for food in the water and on the bottom. They take 69 to 98 days to become frogs.[1]

Threats

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This frog has already gone extinct in some of the places it used to live.[2] This may be because humans have changed the forests where it used to live by cutting down trees for lumber and because of disease. For example, the fungal disease chytridiomycosis.[1]

References

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  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 Christine Isabel Javier; Kellie Whittaker (November 2, 2009). "Agalychnis lemur: Lemur Leaf Frog". Amphibiaweb. Retrieved October 25, 2021.
  2. 2.0 2.1 IUCN SSC Amphibian Specialist Group (2020). "Lemur Leaf Frog: Agalychnis lemur". 2020. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species: e.T55855A3033153. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2020-3.RLTS.T55855A3033153.en. S2CID 242148902. Retrieved October 25, 2021. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  3. 3.0 3.1 "Agalychnis lemur (Boulenger, 1882)". Amphibian Species of the World 6.0, an Online Reference. American Museum of Natural History. Retrieved October 25, 2021.