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

Pristimantis cryptomelas (Lynch, 1979)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Superfamily: Brachycephaloidea > Family: Strabomantidae > Subfamily: Pristimantinae > Genus: Pristimantis > Species: Pristimantis cryptomelas

Eleutherodactylus cryptomelas Lynch, 1979, Misc. Publ. Mus. Nat. Hist. Univ. Kansas, 66: 21. Holotype: KU 141992, by original designation. Type locality: "15 km E Loja, Provincia Zamora-Chinchipe, Ecuador, 2710 m".

Eleutherodactylus (Eleutherodactylus) cryptomelas — Lynch, 1996, in Powell and Henderson (eds.), Contr. W. Indian Herpetol.: 154; Lynch and Duellman, 1997, Univ. Kansas Mus. Nat. Hist. Spec. Publ., 23: 223.

Pristimantis cryptomelas — Heinicke, Duellman, and Hedges, 2007, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, Suppl. Inform., 104: Table 2.

Pristimantis (Pristimantis) cryptomelas — Hedges, Duellman, and Heinicke, 2008, Zootaxa, 1737: 128.

Pristimantis (Huicundomantis) cryptomelas — Páez and Ron, 2019, ZooKeys, 868: 27.

English Names

Cryptic Robber Frog (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 74).

Distribution

Subpáramo and cloud forests at 2470–3100 m elevation on the Amazonian slopes of the eastern Andean Cordillera of southern Ecuador and the ridges north of the Cuenca de Loja; vicinity of El Tambo (2770–2820 m) on the western slope of the Cordillera Huancabamba in Piura Province, Peru. See comment.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Ecuador, Peru

Comment

In the Eleutherodactylus (Eleutherodactylus) martinicensis series, Eleutherodactylus unistrigatus group of Lynch and Duellman, 1997, Univ. Kansas Mus. Nat. Hist. Spec. Publ., 23: 223. See Duellman and Wild, 1993, Occas. Pap. Mus. Nat. Hist. Univ. Kansas, 157: 1–53. See account by Duellman and Pramuk, 1999, Sci. Pap. Nat. Hist. Mus. Univ. Kansas, 13: 1-78. In the Pristimantis (Pristimantis) unistrigatus species group of Hedges, Duellman, and Heinicke, 2008, Zootaxa, 1737: 128. Not assignable to a species group according to Padial, Grant, and Frost, 2014, Zootaxa, 3825: 127. See photograph, map, description of geographic range and habitat, and conservation status (as Eleutherodactylus cryptomelas) in Stuart, Hoffmann, Chanson, Cox, Berridge, Ramani, and Young, 2008, Threatened Amph. World: 330. See Duellman and Lehr, 2009, Terrest.-breeding Frogs in Peru: 170–172, for brief account. In the Pristimantis (Huicundomantis) cryptomelas species group of Páez and Ron, 2019, ZooKeys, 868: 95, who provided an account. Székely, Eguiguren, Ordóñez-Delgado, Armijos-Ojeda, and Székely, 2020, PLoS One, 15(9: e0238306): 37–40, provided an account, summarizing morphology, coloration, distribution, and natural history, and where they recommended that the Peruvian record by confirmed with molecular data; advertisement call unknown.

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 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 observation see iNaturalist
For additional information specific to Ecuador see FaunaWebEcuador: Anfibios del Ecuador
For access to available specimen data for this species, from over 350 scientific collections, go to Vertnet.