The widespread "Mexican Treefrog" (Smilisca baudinii) is one of the best known anuran denizens of much of tropical Mexico and Central America. It even gets up as far as the southern tip of Texas. Even though it is widespread and very common over much of its range, it's identity as a single species is not clear. Over the years several studies have proposed that these populations represent not a single species but a complex of multiple species.
A recent study published in the journal of MesoAmerican Herpetology has resurrected one of these species, Smilisca manisorum, that was first described in 1954 by Edward Taylor. The population is question occurs from the eastern Caribbean lowland mesic forests from the Mosquito Coast of Honduras down through the caribbean lowlands of Costa Rica. It is regarded as a different species from the populations on the Pacific versant of Central America.
This study separated S. manisorum from S. baudinii populations on the west coast of Central America by a series of morphological characteristics including "its consistently larger adult size, the long and flat inner metatarsal tubercle, and the increased hind limb webbing". The paper has illustrations of these characters and the authors also collected tissues for future molecular studies.
My concern, of course, is simply did I get a new lifer!???
This Treefrog from Cano Negro, Costa Rica could fall in the area potentially inhabited by Smilisca manisorum. Although the ranges are not completely worked out, this part of Costa Rica seems to be more affiliated with the Atlantic versant of Costa Rica than the Pacific, from which it is separated by the Guanacaste Mountains.
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Maccranie, et al. (2017) also suggest that the populations from the El Petén region of Guatemala may also represent a different species previously described as Hyla pansosana but they do not elevate that species in their publication. That leaves me curious about the "smilisca complex" frogs I have seen in southern Campeche which is adjacent to and contiguous with that Petén habitat, but that post will have to wait until the species is elevated.
McCranie, J. R. 2017. Morphological and systematic comments on the Caribbean lowland population of Smilisca baudinii (Anura: Hylidae: Hylinae) in northeastern Honduras, with the resurrection of Hyla manisorum Taylor. Mesoamerican Herpetology 4: 513–526.
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© Chris Harrison 2020
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