Aromobates

Aromobates
Aromobates ornatissimus
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Amphibia
Order: Anura
Family: Aromobatidae
Subfamily: Aromobatinae
Genus: Aromobates
Myers, Paolillo-O., and Daly, 1991
Type species
Aromobates nocturnus
Myers, Paolillo-O., and Daly, 1991
Diversity
18 species (see text)
Synonyms

Nephelobates La Marca, 1994

Aromobates is a group of frogs. People call them skunk frogs in English. These frogs live in the Andes Mountains in Venezuela and Colombia. At first, scientists only put one species of frog in this group: Aromobates nocturnus. Later, they decided that the frogs in Nephelobates belonged in this group too.

Name

The name Aromobates comes from the Latin aroma, meaning "good smell." The smell of the type species, Aromobates nocturnus, is like the smell of a skunk.

Bodies

Aromobates are small to medium-sized frogs that have colors that make them hard to see. They have strong bodies and webbed skin on their back feet. For example, the small Aromobates meridensis and Aromobates walterarpi are around 3 cm (1.2 in) from nose to rear end and have webbed back feet, and the big Aromobates nocturnus (up to 62 mm (2.4 in) in females) also have webbed back feet.

Species

There are 18 species, many of them endangered:

References

  1. ↑ Grant, T.; Frost, D. R.; Caldwell, J. P.; Gagliardo, R.; Haddad, C. F. B.; Kok, P. J. R.; Means, D. B.; Noonan, B. P.; Schargel, W. E. & Wheeler, W. (2006). "Phylogenetic systematics of dart-poison frogs and their relatives (Amphibia, Athesphatanura, Dendrobatidae)" (PDF). Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. 299: 1–262. doi:10.1206/0003-0090(2006)299[1:psodfa]2.0.co;2. hdl:2246/5803. S2CID 82263880.
  2. 1 2 Frost, Darrel R. (2014). "Aromobates Myers, Paolillo-O., and Daly, 1991". Amphibian Species of the World: an Online Reference. Version 6.0. American Museum of Natural History. Retrieved 15 August 2014.
  3. ↑ "aroma". Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper.
  4. ↑ F. Harvey Pough; et al. (2004). Herpetology. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall. p. 92. ISBN 0-13-100849-8.
  5. 1 2 Vitt, Laurie J.; Caldwell, Janalee P. (2014). Herpetology: An Introductory Biology of Amphibians and Reptiles (4th ed.). Academic Press. p. 487.
  6. ↑ IUCN (2014). "IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2014.2. <www.iucnredlist.org>". Retrieved 15 August 2014.