Atelopus spumarius Cope, 1871

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Bufonidae > Genus: Atelopus > Species: Atelopus spumarius

Atelopus spumarius Cope, 1871, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 23: 222. Syntypes: ANSP (2 specimens), lost according to Lescure, 1981, Bull. Mus. Natl. Hist. Nat. Paris, Sect. A, Zool., 3: 894, who designated MNHNP 1979.8382 neotype. Type locality: "Ambyiacu R[iver]."; rendered as Ampiyacu River, Pebas, Departamento Loreto, Peru, by Lescure, 1981, Bull. Mus. Natl. Hist. Nat. Paris, Sect. A, Zool., 3: 894; rendered as "Iquitos, Peru" by Jorge, Ferrão, and Lima, 2020, Diversity, 12 (310): 2. Neotype from "Colonia, bassin de la rivière Ampiyacu (Depto. Loreto), Pérou".

Atelopus spumarius spumariusRivero, 1968, Caribb. J. Sci., 8: 23.

Common Names

Pebas Stubfoot Toad (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 40).

Distribution

Known only from the vicinity of the type locality (Colonia, Departamento Loreto, Peru). Populations unresolved taxonomically but related fround from Amazonian Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru (see comment). 

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Peru

Endemic: Peru

Comment

In the Atelopus flavescens group. Duellman and Lynch, 1969, Herpetologica, 25: 231–240, described the tadpole. Cocroft, McDiarmid, Jaslow, and Ruiz-Carranza, 1990, Copeia, 1990: 631–643, discussed the call and suggested that Atelopus spumarius was a species complex. Rodríguez and Duellman, 1994, Univ. Kansas Mus. Nat. Hist. Spec. Publ., 22: 12, provided a brief account. See discussion by Lötters, 1996, Neotrop. Toad Genus Atelopus: 47. Lötters, Haas, Schick, and Böhme, 2002, Salamandra, 388: 168, regarded Atelopus spumarius as a species complex, removed Atelopus pulcher from its synonymy, and noted that Atelopus spumarius sensu stricto is likely restricted to the upper Amazon Basin of eastern Peru, southeastern Colombia, and Ecuador. 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: 176. Lötters, Schulte, and Haddad, 2005, in Rueda-Almonacid et al. (eds.), Ranas Arlequines: 126, provided a brief account, photograph, and map (but at which time the concept of this species included what is now Atelopus manauensis). Records of this nominal species from the Guianas and adjacent Brazil are now referred to Atelopus hoogmoedi. Lescure, 1981, Amphibia-Reptilia, 2: 209–215, provided information on call. See comment under Atelopus manauensis.  Taucce, Costa-Campos, Carvalho, and Michalski, 2022, Eur. J. Taxon., 836: 96–130, regarded records of Atelopus spumarius from Amapá, Brazil, as based on misidentifications of Atelopus hoogmoedi. Plewnia, Terán-Valdez, Culebras, Boistel, Paluh, Quezada Riera, Heine, Reyes-Puig, Salazar-Valenzuela, Guayasamin, and Lötters, 2024, Salamandra, 60: 237–253, redelimited the species, restricting it to the vicinity of the type locality, with other records being assigned to other species. They also provided a dot map of the range of this species and for taxonomically unresolved populations. 

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