"Colostethus" ruthveni Kaplan, 1997

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Superfamily: Dendrobatoidea > Family: Dendrobatidae > Subfamily: Dendrobatinae > Species: "Colostethus" ruthveni

Colostethus ruthveni Kaplan, 1997, J. Herpetol., 31: 369. Holotype: UMMZ 54618, by original designation. Type locality: "Quebrada Viernes Santo, in the mountains near Santa Marta, Departamento de Magdalena, Colombia".

"Colostethus" ruthveni — Grant, Rada, Anganoy-Criollo, Batista, Dias, Jeckel, Machado, and Rueda-Almonacid, 2017, S. Am. J. Herpetol., 12 (Special Issue): 26. 

Common Names

None noted.

Distribution

Elevations of 472–2100 m on the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Departamento del Magdalena, Colombia. See comment. 

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Colombia

Endemic: Colombia

Comment

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: 226. González-Maya, González, Zárrate-Charry, Charry, Cepeda, and Balaguera-Reina, 2011, J. Threatened Taxa, 3: 1633–1636, provided a range extension, as did Granda-Rodríguez, Saboyá-Acosta, del Portillo-Mozo, and Renjifo, 2014, Check List, 10: 674–676, wo provided a range extension and mapped the known localities of this species as well as providing photographs. Grant, Rada, Anganoy-Criollo, Batista, Dias, Jeckel, Machado, and Rueda-Almonacid, 2017, S. Am. J. Herpetol., 12 (Special Issue): 1–90, noted that the Colostethus ruthveni group (Colostethus ruthveni and an unnamed species) sits within Dendrobatinae and not within Colostethus. Pending a generic description by Grant et al. I retain "Colostethus" ruthveni in Dendrobatinae. Meza-Joya, Chinchilla-Lemus, Ramos, Armesto, and Acevedo-Rincón, 2019, Herpetol. Notes, 12: 61–69, provided new localities, provided a dot map, and discussed the range, identification, and taxonomic affinities. Jiménez-Bolaño, Montes-Correa, Polo-Córdoba, Linares-Vargas, Vergara-Gil, Barrio-Amorós, and Koch, 2019, Salamandra, 55: 27–38, reported on the acoustic repertoire of the group and corroborated the conclusion of Grant, Rada, Anganoy-Criollo, Batista, Dias, Jeckel, Machado, and Rueda-Almonacid, 2017, S. Am. J. Herpetol., 12 (Special Issue): 1–90, that the population from the southern slopes of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta are a distinct, still unnamed, species (referred to by Grant et al. as “Colostethus” sp. ruthveni-like). They further suggested that “Colostethus” ruthveni sensu stricto is restricted to the northwestern slopes Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, with specimens from the northern slopes representing an additional, undescribed species, referred to by them as “Colostethus” cf. ruthveni. The claim by Portik, Streicher, and Wiens, 2023, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 188 (107907): 67, that their placement of Colostethus ruthveni in Dendrobatinae renders Colostethinae non-monophyletic is surprising inasmuch as Grant, Rada, Anganoy-Criollo, Batista, Dias, Jeckel, Machado, and Rueda-Almonacid, 2017, S. Am. J. Herpetol., 12 (Special Issue): 1–90 (not cited by Portik et al., 2023) already noted that the Colostethus ruthveni group (Colostethus ruthveni and an unnamed species) sits within Dendrobatinae and not within Colostethus. Grant et al. (2017) placed quotation marks around Colostethus to mark that its generic assignment remains to be identified. Polo-Córdoba, Linares-Vargas, Montes-Correa, Jiménez-Bolaño, Saboyá-Acosta, and Granda-Rodríguez, 2024, Amph. Rept. Conserv., 18: 68–90, discussed natural history and suggested on the basis of larval and reproductive characters that this "Colostethus" ruthveni sits within Dendrobatinae as the sister taxon of the remainder of Dendrobatinae excluding Phyllobates. 

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