| Gastrotheca testudinea | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Amphibia |
| Order: | Anura |
| Family: | Hemiphractidae |
| Genus: | Gastrotheca |
| Species: | G. testudinea |
| Binomial name | |
| Gastrotheca testudinea (Jiménez de la Espada, 1870) | |
| Synonyms | |
| |
The tortoise marsupial frog, Espada's marsupial frog, or rana marsupial tortuga (Gastrotheca testudinea) is a frog. It lives in Ecuador and Peru.
The adult male frog is 49.8–61.1 mm long from nose to rear end and the adult female frog is 56.8–82.6 mm. This frog can be different colors. Scientists have seen frogs with brown backs with green and dark brown marks and light-colored chests and bellies. They have seen frogs with green backs and orange or bronze bellies and bronze eyes with brown-pink lines. One young frog had an olive-brown back, red spots, green color under its eyes, a light gray belly, and bronze eyes with black lines.
This frog lives in trees in cloud forests. Scientists have seen it at night on leaves and stems of trees and smaller plants. During they day, they see it in bromeliad plants. Scientists only found the frog in and near forests that were never cut down. Scientists have seen the frog between 700 and 2,775 m (2,297 and 9,104 ft)above sea level.
Scientists saw the frogs in some protected places: Pilon Lajas National Park, Carrasco National Park, Parque Nacional y Área Natural de Manejo Integrado Cotapata, and Parque Nacional del Manu. There are protected places where the frogs live: Parque Nacional Sumaco Napo-Galeras, Reserva Ecológica Antisana, Reserva Biológa San Francisco, Parque Nacional Llanganates, Parque Nacional Sangay.
The female frog carries her eggs in a bag of skin on her back. This frog hatches into a small frog and is never a tadpole. Scientists have seen female frogs carrying 30-69 eggs at a time.
Scientists in Ecuador say the frog is in some danger of dying out and scientists from the IUCN say the frog is not in danger of dying out. In some places, human beings change the places where the frogs live to make farms, make places for animals to live, and get wood to use. The fungual disease chytridiomycosis could also hurt this frog.
The Museum of Zoology of the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador has some of these frogs living there.
