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| Panama Snouted Treefrog photo by Angel Sosa-Bartuano. Used under CC-by-NC license granted on this iNaturalist record. |
The Panama Snouted Tree Frog (Scinax altae) is a small, striped cone-nosed treefrog of the grasslands and marshes of the Pacific versant of Panama and into SW Costa Rica. It appears to be a southern, isolated sister population of the widespread Stauffer's Treefrog (S. staufferi) which occurs in Northwestern Costa Rica and north into Mexico.
I recorded these frogs in Central Panama just east of the Tocumen International Airport. In fact, you can hear a plane taking off in the recording!
It had rained heavily earlier that day and the frogs were calling from some flooded marshy pastureland after dark. When I first heard their buzzy call, it reminded me of a Scinax species, but I couldn't match it to any particular species I knew. It sounded like S. staufferi, but I knew that species wasn't found in Panama. I decided they must be Yellow Treefrog species (genus Dendropsophus).
It was only after I got this record uploaded to iNaturalist that another user pointed out the correct species identification. A little research online and I ended up with another new frog for the lifelist! And a new Scinax to boot - one of my favorite Neotropical hylids.
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© Chris Harrison 2024
Barrio-Amoros, C., Forero-Cano, A.M., Stuster, R., Batista, A., Canzoneri, M., and Arias, E. 2023. The presence of Scinax altae (Dunn, 1933) in Costa Rica, with redescription of its advertisement call. Anartia 37:34-46. https://zenodo.org/records/10516165
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