| Gastrotheca cornuta | |
|---|---|
 | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Amphibia |
| Order: | Anura |
| Family: | Hemiphractidae |
| Genus: | Gastrotheca |
| Species: | G. cornuta |
| Binomial name | |
| Gastrotheca cornuta (Boulenger, 1898) | |
| Synonyms | |
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The horned marsupial frog or rana marsupial con cuernos (Gastrotheca cornuta) is a frog. It lives in Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, and Colombia.
The adult male frog is 66 to 81 mm long from nose to rear end. The adult female frog is 77 mm. There are 8-12 ridges on the body going across. There are triangles of skin on top of the eyes that look like horns. The skin of the frog's back is dark brown during the day and light brown at night. There is a dark brown stripe from the eardrum to where the legs meet the body. The belly is pink to light brown in color. The throat is brown in color. The iris of the eye is bronze on the outside and cream-yellow or olive green in the middle.
This frog lives high in trees where the branches come together like a roof. It lives in both forest that was never cut down and forest that is growing back as long as there is enough water in the air, but it does not live anywhere that is not a forest. Scientists have seen the frog between 0 and 1,932 m (0 and 6,339 ft) above sea level.
Scientists have seen the frogs near Parque Nacional Katios.
The female frog carries her eggs in a bag of skin on her back. This frog hatches into a small froglet, not a tadpole. Even when the animal is still in its egg, it does not look like a tadpole. For example, many species of frog have keratin in their mouths like tadpoles do before they hatch out of their eggs, but G. cornuta does not. This frog has the biggest eggs of any amphibian.
Scientists from the IUCN say the frog is in very big danger of dying out. Human beings change the places where the frog lives to make farms, even where this is against the law, to get wood to use, and to make places for people to live. The chemicals people use on farms can also hurt the frog.
Scientists saw that many of the frogs died at the same time. They think the fungal disease chytridiomycosis could have killed the frogs, that climate change could have killed the frogs, or both, but they are not sure.
Scientists from the Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project in Panama and from Balsa de los Sapos in Ecuador have some of the frogs. These frogs have young, so the frog is less likely to die out.
