Search tool	Example of search string in box	What that means to the database
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	Hyl*	Will find all uses of "Hyl . . ." anywhere in a record: e.g., Hylarana, Hyla, Hylidae, Hylinae, Hylaedactyla.
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	*Hyla	Will find all uses of ". . . hyla" anywhere in a record: e.g., Hyla, Hylidae, Plectrohyla, Ptychadena hylaea, Adenomera hylaedactyla
	Hyla	Will find all records that contain stand-alone uses of Hyla: e.g., Hyla, Hyla arenicolor
Strings of words without quotation marks	Lithobates pipiens	Interprets this as "Lithobates OR pipiens" so will find the union of all records that contain either "Lithobates" or "pipiens": e.g., Lithobates omiltemanus, Hylorana pipiens
Strings of word with quotation marks	"Lithobates pipiens"	Interprets this as "Lithobates AND pipiens" so will return all records that have the character string "Lithobates pipiens" anywhere within a record: e.g., all members of the Lithobates pipiens complex.
AND statement. Means that the results of the search must include both words held together by an AND	Lithobates AND pipiens	Same as "Lithobates pipiens"
OR statement. Means that the results of the search will all records that have either of the terms held together by an OR	Lithobates OR "Costa Rica"	Recovers all records that contain the word "Lithobates" or "Costa Rica": 402 records inasmuch as this will include all records for the entire amphibian fauna of Costa Rica
Combining Boolean operators within the Basic Search box (AND, OR, NOT, quotation marks)	Lithobates AND "Costa Rica" NOT forreri	Recovers only records that contain the word Lithobates AND "Costa Rica", but excludes any record that contains the word "forreri" in any part of the record: 9 records
Printable HELP file

Search tool	Example of search string in box	What that means to the database
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	Hyl*	Will find all uses of "Hyl . . ." anywhere in a record: e.g., Hylarana, Hyla, Hylidae, Hylinae, Hylaedactyla.
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	*Hyla	Will find all uses of ". . . hyla" anywhere in a record: e.g., Hyla, Hylidae, Plectrohyla, Ptychadena hylaea, Adenomera hylaedactyla
Single word	Hyla	Will find all records that contain stand-alone uses of Hyla: e.g., Hyla, Hyla arenicolor
Strings of words without quotation marks	Lithobates pipiens	Interprets this as "Lithobates OR pipiens" so will find the union of all records that contain either "Lithobates" or "pipiens": e.g., Lithobates omiltemanus, Hylorana pipiens
Strings of word with quotation marks	"Lithobates pipiens"	Interprets this as "Lithobates AND pipiens" so will return all records that have the character string "Lithobates pipiens" anywhere within a record: e.g., all members of the Lithobates pipiens complex.
AND statement. Means that the results of the search must include both words held together by an AND	Lithobates AND pipiens	Same as "Lithobates pipiens"
OR statement. Means that the results of the search will all records that have either of the terms held together by an OR	Lithobates OR "Costa Rica"	Recovers all records that contain the word "Lithobates" or "Costa Rica": 402 records inasmuch as this will include all records for the entire amphibian fauna of Costa Rica
Combining Boolean operators within the Basic Search box (AND, OR, NOT, quotation marks)	Lithobates AND "Costa Rica" NOT forreri	Recovers only records that contain the word Lithobates AND "Costa Rica", but excludes any record that contains the word "forreri" in any part of the record: 9 records
Printable HELP file

Craugastor melanostictus (Cope, 1875)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Superfamily: Brachycephaloidea > Family: Craugastoridae > Genus: Craugastor > Species: Craugastor melanostictus

Lithodytes melanostictus Cope, 1875 "1876", J. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, Ser. 2, 8: 109. Holotype: USNM 30608 according to Cochran, 1961, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 220: 66. Type locality: "7000 feet elevation on the Pico Blanco", Provincia Limón, eastern Costa Rica. Corrected to "Cerro Utyum, 7000 ft, Cantón de Talamanca, Provincia de Limón; 2134 m", Costa Rica, by Savage, 1974, Rev. Biol. Tropical, 22: 110. See also discussion of type locality by Arias and Chaves, 2014, Mesoam. Herpetol., 1: 176–180, who concluded that the type locality is actually ""Near another unnamed hill at the headwaters of the Río Lari, elev. 2,135 m", Provincia de Limón, Costa Rica.

Hylodes melanostictus — Brocchi, 1881, Miss. Scient. Mex. Amer. Centr., Rech. Zool., 3(2, livr. 1): 56.

Hylodes platyrhynchus Günther, 1900, Biol. Centr. Amer., Rept. Batr., Vol. 7, Part 157: 230–231. Holotype: BMNH 1947.2.14.81 (formerly 1905.7.18.1), according to museum records. Type locality: "Costa Rica". Synonymy by Savage and DeWeese, 1981 "1980", Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, 93: 928–942.

Eleutherodactylus platyrhynchus — Stejneger, 1904, Annu. Rep. U.S. Natl. Mus. for 1902: 582–583, by implication.

Eleutherodactylus melanostictus — Stejneger, 1904, Annu. Rep. U.S. Natl. Mus. for 1902: 582–583, by implication; Taylor, 1952, Univ. Kansas Sci. Bull., 35: 728.

Eleutherodactylus platyrhynchus — Taylor, 1952, Univ. Kansas Sci. Bull., 35: 757.

Eleutherodactylus (Craugastor) melanostictus — Hedges, 1989, in Woods (ed.), Biogeograph. W. Indies: 317, by implication; Lynch, 1996, in Powell and Henderson (eds.), Contr. W. Indian Herpetol.: 154.

Craugastor melanostictus — Crawford and Smith, 2005, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 35: 551, by implication; Frost, Grant, Faivovich, Bain, Haas, Haddad, de Sá, Channing, Wilkinson, Donnellan, Raxworthy, Campbell, Blotto, Moler, Drewes, Nussbaum, Lynch, Green, and Wheeler, 2006, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 297: 360.

Craugastor (Craugastor) melanostictus — Hedges, Duellman, and Heinicke, 2008, Zootaxa, 1737: 37.

Common Names

Black-lined Robber Frog (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 77).

Distribution

Humid forests in the Cordillera de Tilarán, Costa Rica, to Chiriquí massif of western Panama, 1150–2700 m elevation.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Costa Rica, Panama

Comment

Reviewed by Savage and DeWeese, 1981 "1980", Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, 93: 928–942, who placed it in the Eleutherodactylus melanostictus group, and considered Eleutherodactylus platyrhynchus to be a synonym. Miyamoto and Tennant, 1984, Copeia, 1984: 765–768, transferred it to the Eleutherodactylus fitzingeri group sensu Savage, 1980, Prelim. Handlist Herptofauna Costa Rica. See comment under Eleutherodactylus monnichorum. In the Eleutherodactylus (Craugastor) fitzingeri group of Lynch and Duellman, 1997, Univ. Kansas Mus. Nat. Hist. Spec. Publ., 23: 228. See account by Savage, 2002, Amph. Rept. Costa Rica: 241–242, who included this species in his Eleutherodactylus fitzingeri series, Eleutherodactylus fitzingeri group. In the Craugastor fitzingeri series, Craugastor melanostictus species group of Hedges, Duellman, and Heinicke, 2008, Zootaxa, 1737: 37, and of Padial, Grant, and Frost, 2014, Zootaxa, 3825: 123. See photograph, map, description of geographic range and habitat, and conservation status in Stuart, Hoffmann, Chanson, Cox, Berridge, Ramani, and Young, 2008, Threatened Amph. World: 306. Köhler, 2011, Amph. Cent. Am.: 140–191, provided a key to the genera and species of Brachycephaloidea (= Craugastoridae, Eleutherodactylidae) in Central America and provided maps and photographs of the species, including this one.

External links:

Please note: these links will take you to external websites not affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History. We are not responsible for their content.

For access to general information see Wikipedia
For additional sources of general information from other websites search Google
For access to relevant technical literature search Google Scholar
For images search CalPhoto Images and Google Images
To search the NIH genetic sequence database, see GenBank
For additional information see AmphibiaWeb report
For information on conservation status and distribution see the IUCN Redlist
For information on distribution, habitat, and conservation see the Map of Life
For related information on conservation and images as well as observations see iNaturalist
For access to available specimen data for this species, from over 350 scientific collections, go to Vertnet.