''Eleutherodactylus tetajulia'' is a species of frog in the family Eleutherodactylidae. It is endemic to southeastern Cuba and is known from the Sierra de Cristal, Monte Iberia, Tetas de Julia, and Meseta del Toldo in the Holguín and Guantánamo Provinces. The

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

''tetajulia'' refers to Las Tetas de Julia (=the breasts of Julia), a pair of prominent peaks on Monte Iberia, near the type locality of this species.

Description

Three adult males in the

type series In biology, a type is a particular specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally attached. In other words, a type is an example that serves to anchor or centralizes the ...

measure and two adult females in snout–vent length. The head is as wide as the body, The snout is subacuminate. The tympanum is round and dorsally concealed by the supra-tympanic fold. The fingers and the toes have weak lateral ridges. Skin is dorsally weakly rugose and ventrally smooth. The dorsal ground color is coppery brown. There is a dark brown middorsal hour glass-shaped marking, narrow, black interocular bar, dark brown horseshoe-shaped sacral marking, and black supra-tympanic and groin bars. The venter is purple with white marking. The male advertisement call is a series of 4–13 (mean 9.4) evenly spaced "chirps".

Habitat and conservation

''Eleutherodactylus tetajulia'' is a terrestrial frog occurring in closed

mesic Mesic may refer to: * Mesic, North Carolina, a town in the United States * Mesic habitat, a type of habitat See also *Mesić (disambiguation) *Mešić Mešić is a Bosnian surname, a patronymic derived from the masculine given name '' Meša'', it ...

forests at elevations of

above sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as ''orthometric heights''. The comb ...

. The type series was collected at night while the animals were active on leaf litter. One pair, a male and a female, were found in a hole formed by the decayed center of a tree fern some above the ground. Along with them were six eggs, probably from another female. Development is direct (i.e., no free-living larval stage). This species is threatened by habitat destruction and deforestation caused by subsistence farming and charcoaling; also mining is a potential threat. It occurs in the

Alejandro de Humboldt National Park Alejandro de Humboldt National Park ( es, Parque Nacional Alejandro de Humboldt) is a national park in the Cuban provinces of Holguín and Guantánamo. It is named after the German scientist Alexander von Humboldt who visited the island in 1800 a ...

, but the park is not effectively managed.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Eleutherodactylus Tetajulia tetajulia Endemic fauna of Cuba Amphibians of Cuba Amphibians described in 1996 Taxa named by Stephen Blair Hedges Taxonomy articles created by Polbot