''Fritziana goeldii'', also known as Goeldi's frog or Colonia Alpina treefrog, is a species of

frog A frog is any member of a diverse and largely Carnivore, carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order (biology), order Anura (ανοὐρά, literally ''without tail'' in Ancient Greek). The oldest fossil "proto-f ...

in the family

Hemiphractidae The Hemiphractidae are a family (biology), family of frogs from South America, South and Central America. Previously, this group had been classified as a subfamily (Hemiphractinae) under family Hylidae. More recent research classifies these gen ...

. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

to southeastern

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

and found in

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...

Espírito Santo Espírito Santo (, , ; ) is a state in southeastern Brazil. Its capital is Vitória, and its largest city is Serra. With an extensive coastline, the state hosts some of the country's main ports, and its beaches are significant tourist attra ...

, and

São Paulo São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for 'Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the GaWC a ...

states. The species is named after

Émil Goeldi Émil August Goeldi (var. Göldi, Portuguese language, Portuguese var. Emílio Augusto Goeldi) (28 August 1859 – 5 July 1917 in Bern), was a Swiss-Brazilian natural history, naturalist and zoologist. He was the father of Oswaldo Goeldi, a no ...

, Swiss zoologist who worked in Brazil. ''Fritziana goeldii'' may be locally threatened by

habitat destruction Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss and habitat reduction) is the process by which a natural habitat becomes incapable of supporting its native species. The organisms that previously inhabited the site are displaced or dead, thereby ...

but over most of its range it is a common species with a large total population, and the

International Union for Conservation of Nature The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...

has rated its conservation status as being of "

least concern A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. T ...

Description

''Fritziana goeldii'' is a small, slender frog; females are long and males are slightly smaller. The snout is pointed, the eyes are large, and there are adhesive discs on the tips of the fingers and toes. The upper parts of the head and body are some shade of pale grey or brown, blotched and streaked with darker colour.

Distribution and habitat

''Fritziana goeldii'' is

to southeastern Brazil, where it is found in the states of

and

. Its natural

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

is forest at altitudes between sea level and about above sea level, but it is an adaptable species, able to live anywhere that there are trees and the epiphytic

bromeliads The Bromeliaceae (the bromeliads) are a family of monocot flowering plants of about 80 genera and 3700 known species, native mainly to the tropical Americas, with several species found in the American subtropics and one in tropical west Africa, ...

in which it breeds.

Ecology

This frog lives among vegetation a few metres above the ground, mostly in and around bromeliads. Breeding is a lengthy affair; while the couple are in

amplexus Amplexus (Latin "embrace") is a type of mating behavior exhibited by some externally fertilizing species (chiefly amphibians and horseshoe crabs) in which a male grasps a female with his front legs as part of the mating process, and at the same ...

, the female secretes quantities of mucus which the male whips into foam with his legs and spreads on the female's back. Here it forms a sticky pad onto which the male presses the fertilised eggs. A clutch of eggs may number nine to twenty or so, and the pad soon hardens. After about nineteen days, the female detaches the eggs and places them in the water-filled hollow of a bromeliad. Here they soon hatch, and undergo

metamorphosis Metamorphosis is a biological process by which an animal physically develops including birth or hatching, involving a conspicuous and relatively abrupt change in the animal's body structure through cell growth and differentiation. Some inse ...

a few days later into juvenile frogs.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q28047033 goeldii Endemic fauna of Brazil Amphibians of Brazil Taxa named by George Albert Boulenger Amphibians described in 1895 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot