Forest Chirping FrogAdenomera hylaedactyla

Photo by user Sebastian2 from iNaturalist.org
Photo used under CC by NC Creative Commons License

As is so often the case, I got a new frog species without any rigorous research or clawing my way through the swamp to find my target.  Instead, I was standing next to a road birding and pointed my recorder out into the edge of a wooded grassy savanna where I heard this sound. I uploaded my mystery call to iNaturalist, and lo and behold (6 years later), someone finally identified it - the Forest Chirping Frog (Adenomera hylaedactyla)!  So a new species and a new genus!

And once again, it is a recording of a species I have never seen, so I will borrow this wonderful photo from iNaturalist user Sebastian2 under the Creative Commons license he granted when uploading to iNaturalist.

The Forest Chirping Frog is a small frog with a loud call.  It is found throughout the Amazon Basin in South America, although I recorded mine in the Aripo Savannah area of Trinidad.  Looking at the distribution of iNat records for the species, it appears to occur throughout the Amazon basin and in a wide variety of habitats.

Adenomera hylaedactyla range map from the IUCN redlist

This is another of the many frogs that make chirping or tink calls.  As I searched for other recordings of this species for comparison, I noticed this species seems to sound different based on the recording distance to the frogs and the quality of the recording. 

Many recordings I hear on iNaturalist.org or Xeno-canto.org sound like a short chip or peep, similar to other "chirping frogs".  However, my recording and many others I heard online sound more like a squeaky, raspy "creek" sound.  That may be due to the fact that I was reasonably close to this frog and was using a shotgun microphone?

Adenomera hylaedactyla call

Always great to get a new recording lifer without leaving the house! 

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© Chris Harrison 2026