The Red-webbed Treefrog (Boana rufitela). It is a "medium" sized treefrog that is normally yellowish or greenish, often with some spots or speckling in its pattern. It is highly variable in general color and pattern. It gets its name from the red webbing between the toes, although that can be hard to see on a resting frog.
This species is believed to occur from the Atlantic Slope of Costa Rica down through the lowlands of Panama (map from iNaturalist.org). However these frogs were found on the Pacific versant of Panama and there are iNaturalist records going all the way down into western lowlands of Colombia.
The Red-webbed Treefrog makes a a short "cluck" type call. It is hard to describe much else about it except that in a group, it does sound a bit like chickens clucking.
Here's a short recording of some of the little cluckers together in a reedy pond edge on the grounds of our lodge in Anton Valley, Panama.
This was another research frog for me. I had seen a few of these frogs on the reeds of a small pond on our hotel grounds. But I had not noticed them calling. I discovered I had recorded this species in December of 2024 when going back over some iNaturalist records and one of the identifiers had mentioned hearing them in my recording of the Harlequin Treefrogs (Dendropsophus ebracattus). But I had totally overlooked the rufitela calls in this recording! So I went back to my recordings from the spot and found a recording where you could hear this species calling underneath the louder calls of the Harlequin Treefrogs, among other species.
Here is what the actual recording sounds like without filtering out the louder species - Harlequin Treefrog (Dendropsophus ebraccatus), Tatayo's Glass Frog (Hyalinobatrachium tatayoi), and Sabinal Frogs (Leptodactylus melanonotus). You can just make out their clucking underneath the din.
So once again, uploading calls to iNaturalist has given me a new species to my frog call recording lifelist!
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© Chris Harrison 2024
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