Yellow-flecked GlassfrogSachatamia albomaculata

 

Yellow-flecked Glassfrogs in amplexus
Costa Rican Amphibian Research Center

 

The Yellow-flecked Grassfrog (Sachatamia albomaculata) is a delicate glassfrog species found in lowland wet forests of Central America.  From maps I have seen, it has an rather discontinuous range Northern Honduras south through Costa Rica and Panama into western Colombia, but then also shows up again in Ecuador.   This may represent more of a lack of data than the true range of the species.

 

Map derived from range map on iNaturalist.org

This was another bonus frog species I recorded accidentally.   I had seen it before on an earlier trip to Panama, but not heard it.  In January 2025, I was trying to record some Red-webbed Treefrogs and Harlequin Treefrogs around the pond on our hotel grounds.  When I posted those recordings to iNaturalist, neotropical frog expert and iNat user ibanezr confirmed my IDs, but added that he could hear Sachatamia albomaculata in the recording as well.  

This led me down a rabbit hole to try to find what this species sounds like and then isolate it from any of my recordings.

The call of this species is a high pitched peep or tick with a dominant frequency ~6600 Hz.   Because of its high pitch I probably dismissed it as an insect in my original recordings.  (This recording is filtered and edited to remove some of the other distracting species of frogs heard calling.)

Yellow-flecked Glassfrog calls from Panama

P.S. - In August 2025, I was able to see a number of this species calling and in amplexus at the Costa Rican Amphibian Research Center thanks to Brian Kubicki!  

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© Chris Harrison 2025