Niceforonia brunnea (Lynch, 1975)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Superfamily: Brachycephaloidea > Family: Craugastoridae > Subfamily: Hypodactylinae > Genus: Niceforonia > Species: Niceforonia brunnea

Phrynopus brunneus Lynch, 1975, Occas. Pap. Mus. Nat. Hist. Univ. Kansas, 35: 14. Holotype: USNM 192909, by original designation. Type locality: "10 km WNW El Carmelo (= Pun), Carchi Prov., Ecuador, 3150 m".

"Phrynopus" brunneusHeinicke, Duellman, and Hedges, 2007, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 104: 10094; Heinicke, Duellman, and Hedges, 2007, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, Suppl. Inform., 104: 4.

Isodactylus brunneusHedges, Duellman, and Heinicke, 2008, Zootaxa, 1737: 108.

Hypodactylus brunneusHedges, Duellman, and Heinicke, 2008, Zootaxa, 1795: 67–68.

Niceforonia brunnea — Acosta-Galvis, Streicher, Manuelli, Cuddy, and de Sá, 2018, Zootaxa, 4514: 494. 

Common Names

Brown Rainfrog (Coloma and Duellman, 2025, Amph. Ecuador. Vol. 3: xxxii).

Cutín Café (Coloma and Duellman, 2025, Amph. Ecuador. Vol. 3: xxxii).

Carchi Andes Frog (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 82).

Distribution

Western slopes of the Cordillera Occidental of the Andes in Carchi, Imbabura, and Sucumbíos provinces, Ecuador, 3296 to 3489 m elevation.  

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Colombia, Ecuador

Comment

Cisneros-Heredia, 2004, Herpetozoa, Wien, 17: 194–195, provided the second locality for this species. Lehr, Fritzsch, and Müller, 2005, Zool. Scripta, 34: 593–603, suggested that Phrynopus brunneus is not nested among other Phrynopus, but imbedded in Eleutherodactylus, but hesitated to make the change pending additional resolution. Heinicke, Duellman, and Hedges, 2007, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 104: 10092–10097, removed this species from nominal Phrynopus but did not provide a new generic name; see comment under HypodactylusBatallas-Revelo, Márquez, and Guayasamin, 2025, ZooKeys, 1224: 211–252, reported on the advertisement call from Carchi Province, Ecuador. Coloma and Duellman, 2025, Amph. Ecuador. Vol. 3: 15–16, provided an account summarizing morphological identification, natural history, distribution (including a dot map for Ecuador), and conservation, with photographs.

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