Oophaga sp. Escudo de Veraguas?

[fishdoc]

http://www.springerlink.com/content/...7/fulltext.pdf

haven't read the mtDNA paper yet, but I'm glad to see they are moving into more informative markers.

[UmbraSprite]

Not sure how important the call is to determining species but I can pick my escudo out of a room of about 25 pumilio with 100% accuracy.

Bet you a cold beer!

[uncle tom]

Hi Folks
in my opinion the Escudos and also the frogs from the mainland of the Peninsula de Valiente are a different specie than pumilio. The genetics with all the Valiente frogs are done but yet not puplished. The Valiente frogs are identical with Escudos but not with Bocas pumilio. The call is definitively different. Escudo and Valiente frogs show a calling rate of 10 notes per second and a dominant frequency of 6000 Hz. Similar sized populations of Bocas Pumilio like Popa or Pastores show only dominant frequencys around 4800 Hz and a calling rate of 5 to 7 notes per second. I think this is a big difference. There are some populations of O. sylvatica with a more pumilio like call! Near the Rio Bisira the pumilio and the Escudos have their parapatric border. On the one site of the River you will find small Escudos or Valiente and on the other side a green pumilio morph. So they are divided geographically, genetically and by different calls! I think they are true species!

Uncle Tom

[MonarchzMan]

But by that logic, we should also consider Isla Colon, Bastimentos, Solarte, San Cristobal, Pastores, Popa, Loma Partida, and Cayo de Agua separate species too? I mean, they're geographically distinct, each has a unique call (relative to body size), and have some genetic divergence, as would be expected from geographical isolation of 10,000 years or so (if memory serve on when the islands came into being).

I'd say since they are so similar and do not appear to have diverged behaviorally or niche use, I'd say that they're the same. The biggest nail in the coffin for me is that phylogenies don't match up. Hopefully, the work on microsatellites will clarify things, but I would doubt it. These frogs are so closely related that the molecular data isn't going to be real conclusive, IMO.

I

[dom]

Originally Posted by MonarchzMan

Unless more compelling evidence comes forward to support Hagemann and Prohl's suggestion, I would still consider Escudo frogs to be pumilio.

has anyother information come out on this topic. Im reading some places that they have switch the 'escudo' in to its own species and some places CITIES for example still label it as O. pumilio.

cheers
dom

[Dancing frogs]

Originally Posted by Julio

i thought this was done about 2 years ago? not recent

I heard this quite a while ago as well...