The Mahogany Treefrog (Tlalocohyla loquax) was kind of a white whale for me. I have been herping and looking for frogs in its range many times over the last 40 years and although I've found a lot of other frog species in that range, I could never find or hear a Mahogany Treefrog!
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| Mahogany Treefrog range map from IUCN Redlist |
Tlalocohyla loquax is not a rare frog, ranging from the lowlands of the northern isthmus of Tehuantepec (where I have herped), over most of the Yucatan platform (where I have traveled extensively), and down into Belize (where I failed to find them) and down into northern Costa Rica (where I also failed to find them). Other herper friends would often chuckle at my inability to find this relatively common species considering how much travel I had done within their range.
Finally in August 2025, I was able to find my white whale! While searching for frogs at the Costa Rican Amphibian Research Center, Brian led us to one of his ponds in the forest and we immediately heard the percussive calls of this species. We heard two of these frogs calling back and forth at this small pond, but because they were calling from a heavily vegetated area away from the edge, we couldn't see them. We came back to that pond on multiple occasions in the days we were there and still couldn't find them. Finally on our last visit, Tim was determined to find one of these frogs to show me and eventually his eagle eyes spotted one way back through the vegetation. I was able to snap the photo posted above. My trip was complete - I had my white whale both in a photo and a recording!
To my ear, the call of this treefrog is percussive "deck" or "puck" often repeated as a double "de-deck". In this recording you can hear a couple calling on the left side. You also hear the "creek" calls of the Hourglass Treefrog (Dendropsophis ebraccatus) with the nasal trill of the Olive Snouted-Treefrog (Scinax elaeochroa) and, of course, the metallic "tinks" of Tink Frogs in the background.
In this second recording, you can hear how the notes become more complicated as the frogs start calling more often, producing a "de-de-deck" sort of call.
I found several much rarer species on our trip. But getting this frog onto the lifelist was still one of my anuran highlights of our trip!
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© Chris Harrison 2025
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