Allobates trilineatus (Boulenger, 1884)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Superfamily: Dendrobatoidea > Family: Aromobatidae > Subfamily: Allobatinae > Genus: Allobates > Species: Allobates trilineatus

Phyllobates trilineatus Boulenger, 1884 "1883", Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1883: 636. Holotype: BMNH 1947.2.14.20, according to Grant and Rodríguez, 2001, Am. Mus. Novit., 3355: 1–24. Type locality: "Yurimaguas, Huallaga River, [Departamento Loreto,] Northern Peru".

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

Allobates trilineatus — Grant, Frost, Caldwell, Gagliardo, Haddad, Kok, Means, Noonan, Schargel, and Wheeler, 2006, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 299: 162.

Common Names

Trilined Nurse Frog ( Coloma and Duellman, 2025, Amph. Ecuador. Vol. 2: xxxi). 

Rana Nordriza Trilineada (Spanish: Coloma and Duellman, 2025, Amph. Ecuador. Vol. 2: xxxi).

Three-striped Rocket Frog (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 49).

Distribution

Known from two localities 

Low elevation (100 to 250 m) forest on the east side of the Cordillera Oriental from Peru (departments of Amazonas, Huánuco, Loreto, Madre de Dios, Puno) south into Bolivia, and east into Acre (Tarauacá, Porto Walter, and Parque Nacional Serra do Divisor) and Amazonas (Envira), Brazil; Amazonian Colombia (southwestern Caquetá and extreme southern Amazonas), and Amazonian Ecuador (provinces of Orellana, Pastaza, and Sucumbíos). See comments regarding cryptic species and range estimation. 

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru

Comment

Prior to the revision of Grant, Frost, Caldwell, Gagliardo, Haddad, Kok, Means, Noonan, Schargel, and Wheeler, 2006, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 299, placed in the Colostethus brunneus group (Group II) of Rivero, 1990 "1988", Mem. Soc. Cienc. Nat. La Salle, 48: 3–32, and the Colostethus trilineatus group of Morales, 2002 "2000", Publ. Asoc. Amigos Doñana, 13: 1–59, (who provided an account for this species and noted that records from Ecuador apply to other species). See account by Morales, 1994, Rev. Esp. Herpetol., 8: 101. De la Riva, Márquez, and Bosch, 1996, J. Nat. Hist., London, 30: 1413–1420, discussed advertisement call. Köhler and Lötters, 1999, Bonn. Zool. Beitr., 48: 259–273, noted the difficulty of identification of Bolivian specimens. See also De la Riva, Köhler, Lötters, and Reichle, 2000, Rev. Esp. Herpetol., 14: 29, for discussion of the taxonomic problems in Bolivia and confusion with Allobates marchesianus. See Grant and Rodríguez, 2001, Am. Mus. Novit., 3355: 1–24, for discussion and redescription of the holotype as well as description of the advertisement call. Duellman, 2005, Cusco Amazonico: 192–194, provided an account (adult and larval morphology, description of the call, life history). Melo-Sampaio, 2015, Herpetol. Rev., 46: 210–211, provided a record for Rio Branco, Acre, Brazil. Melo-Sampaio, Oliveira, and Prates, 2018, S. Am. J. Herpetol., 13: 143–144, commented on geographic variation and misidentifications in the literature. See brief account by Villacampa-Ortega, Serrano-Rojas, and Whitworth, 2017, Amph. Manu Learning Cent.: 30–31. Réjaud, Rodrigues, Crawford, Castroviejo-Fisher, Jaramillo-Martinez, Chaparro Auza, Glaw, Gagliardi-Urrutia, Moravec, De la Riva, Pérez-Peña, Lima, Werneck, Hrbek, Ron, Ernst, Kok, Driskell, Chave, and Fouquet, 2020, J. Biogeograph., 47: 2472–2482, noted a cryptic species associated with this taxon. Jaramillo-Martinez, Gagliardi-Urrutia, Simões, and Castroviejo-Fisher, 2021, Zootaxa, 4951: 201–235, provided a review and redescription of the species, including the recognition of a cryptic species including what they referred to as Allobates aff. trilineatus from the Brazilian state of Acre and from southern Peru in Panguana, Huanuco, and Puerto Maldonado, Madre de Dios and Allobates sp. from Requena, Loreto, Peru. Coloma and Duellman, 2025, Amph. Ecuador. Vol. 2: 62–64, provided an account, with photographs, which summarized identification, adult and larval morphology, systematics, natural history, distribution (including a dot map and elevations for Ecuador), and conservation. These authors restricted the range of the nominal species in Ecuador to one locality in Pastaza Province based on the assignment of other populations formery assigned to Allobates trilineatus, but considered that even this assignment requires genetic confirmation. Ocampo, Aparicio, Bernal Hoverud, Domic, and Wallace, 2024, Herpetol. Notes, 17: 371–389, reported the species and its habitat in Madidi National Park, La Paz, Bolivia.  Crnobrna, Champagne, Williams, Turner, and Panduro Pisco, 2025, Biodiversity Data J., 13 (e154136): 1–42, provided records from along the Las Piedras River, Madre de Dios, Peru. Ferreira, Ferrão, Cunha-Machado, Magnusson, Hanken, and Lima, 2025, Herpetologica, 81: 346–362, discussed advertisement calls and distribution of Allobates trilineatus and three likely unnamed cryptic associates previous confused under this name.

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