Raorchestes luteolus

species of amphibian

The Coorg yellow bush frog or blue-eyed yellow bush frog (Raorchestes luteolus) is a frog. It lives in southern India. Scientists have seen it in the Western Ghat mountains between 500 and 1250 meters above sea level.[2][3][1][4]

Raorchestes luteolus
LC (IUCN3.1Q)[1]
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Amphibia
Order: Anura
Family: Rhacophoridae
Genus: Raorchestes
Species:
R. luteolus
Binomial name
Raorchestes luteolus
(Kuramoto and Joshy, 2003)
Synonyms[2]
  • Philautus luteolus Kuramoto and Joshy, 2003
  • Philautus neelanethrus Gururaja, Aravind, Ali, Ramachandra, Velavan, Krishnakumar, and Aggarwal, 2007
  • Pseudophilautus luteolus Li, Che, Murphy, Zhao, Zhao, Rao, and Zhang, 2009
  • Raorchestes luteolus Biju, Shouche, Dubois, Dutta, and Bossuyt, 2010

The adult male frog is about 26.8 mm long from nose to rear end. The skin of the frog's back is yellow or yellow-brown in color with light stripes that are not easy to see. The male frog turns yellow when it is time to find female frogs who will lay eggs. It turns cream-white at other times of year.

This frog lives in forests and in Myristica swamps on the mountains. It sits on plants about 1 meter above the ground.[3] People have seen this frog in forests that were cut down and are growing back, coffee farms, and other places that humans have changed.[1]

Scientists say this frog is not in danger of dying out because it lives in a large place, which includes many protected parks, but humans can harm the frog by building and improving roads in the Western Ghat Mountains, building farms, removing trees or dead leaves from the forest, and changing its habitat in other ways.[1]

Scientists have seen the fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis on other frogs in Raorchestes, so they think it could infect R. jayarami too. Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis causes the fungal disease chytridiomycosis.[1][1]

References

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  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 IUCN SSC Amphibian Specialist Group (2022). "Coorg Yellow Bush Frog: Raorchestes luteolus". The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 3.1. p. e.T88976304A166156778. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2022-2.RLTS.T88976304A166156778.en. 88976304. Retrieved March 28, 2024.
  2. 2.0 2.1 Frost, Darrel R. "Raorchestes luteolus (Kuramoto and Joshy, 2003)". Amphibian Species of the World, an Online Reference. Version 6.0. American Museum of Natural History, New York. Retrieved August 24, 2023.
  3. 3.0 3.1 Kellie Whittaker (June 22, 2010). Kellie Whittaker; Michelle S. Koo (eds.). "Raorchestes luteolus (Kuramoto and Joshy, 2003)". AmphibiaWeb. University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved August 24, 2023.
  4. Mitsuru Kuramoto; S. Hareesh Joshy (2003). "Two New Species of the Genus Philautus (Anura: Rhacophoridae) from the Western Ghats, Southwestern India". Current Herpetology (Abstract). 22 (2): 51–60. doi:10.5358/hsj.22.51. Retrieved August 24, 2023.