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

Hyloxalus vertebralis (Boulenger, 1899)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Superfamily: Dendrobatoidea > Family: Dendrobatidae > Subfamily: Hyloxalinae > Genus: Hyloxalus > Species: Hyloxalus vertebralis

Phyllodromus vertebralis Boulenger, 1899, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Ser. 7, 4: 456. Syntypes: BMNH (several specimens), by original designation; according to museum records these are BMNH 1947.2.13.96–99 (formerly 1899.10.30.21–22) and 1947.2.14.1–2 (formerly 1899.10.30.23–26). Type locality: "Cañar, 8400 feet altitude", Cañar, Ecuador.

Prostherapis vertebralis — Peracca, 1904, Boll. Mus. Zool. Anat. Comp. Univ. Torino, 19 (465): 17.

Phyllobates vertebralis — Barbour and Noble, 1920, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., 63: 401.

Colostethus vertebralis — Edwards, 1971, Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, 84: 148.

Hyloxalus vertebralis — Grant, Frost, Caldwell, Gagliardo, Haddad, Kok, Means, Noonan, Schargel, and Wheeler, 2006, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 299: 169.

Common Names

Vertebral Rocket Frog (Coloma and Duellman, 2025, Amph. Ecuador. Vol. 2: xxxii).

Rana Cohete Vertebral (Spanish: Coloma and Duellman, 2025, Amph. Ecuador. Vol. 2: xxxii).

Boulenger's Rocket Frog (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 49).

Distribution

Elevations of 1742–3859 m in the inter-Andean valleys and on slopes of the Cordilleras Occidental and Oriental in southern Ecuador (Chimborazo, Cañar, Azuay, and Loja provinces).

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Ecuador

Endemic: Ecuador

Comment

Reviewed by Edwards, 1971, Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, 84: 158-162. See account by Coloma, 1995, Misc. Publ. Mus. Nat. Hist. Univ. Kansas, 87: 54. Almendáriz C. and Orcés, 2004, Rev. Politécnica, Quito, 25: 111-112, provided distributional data for Ecuador. See photograph, map, description of geographic range and habitat, and conservation status (as Colostethus vertebralis) in Stuart, Hoffmann, Chanson, Cox, Berridge, Ramani, and Young, 2008, Threatened Amph. World: 227. Coloma and Duellman, 2025, Amph. Ecuador. Vol. 2: 155–158, provided an account, with photographs, which summarized identification, adult and larval morphology, systematics, natural history, distribution (including a dot map), conservation, and (on pp. 561–562) the advertisement call.

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 additional information specific to Ecuador see FaunaWebEcuador: Anfibios del Ecuador