''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 semiaquatic group of short-bodied, tailless amphibian vertebrates composing the order (biology), order Anura (coming from the Ancient Greek , literally 'without tail'). Frog species with rough ski ...

in the family

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

. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only 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 foun ...

to southeastern

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

and found in

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro, or simply Rio, is the capital of the Rio de Janeiro (state), state of Rio de Janeiro. It is the List of cities in Brazil by population, second-most-populous city in Brazil (after São Paulo) and the Largest cities in the America ...

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 attracti ...

, and

São Paulo São Paulo (; ; Portuguese for 'Paul the Apostle, Saint Paul') is the capital of the São Paulo (state), state of São Paulo, as well as the List of cities in Brazil by population, most populous city in Brazil, the List of largest cities in the ...

states. The species is named after

Émil Goeldi Émil August Goeldi (var. Göldi, Portuguese var. Emílio Augusto Goeldi) (28 August 1859 – 5 July 1917 in Bern), was a Swiss-Brazilian naturalist and zoologist. He was the father of Oswaldo Goeldi, a noted Brazilian engraver and illustra ...

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

habitat destruction Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss or habitat reduction) occurs when a natural habitat is no longer able to support its native species. The organisms once living there have either moved elsewhere, or are dead, leading to a decrease ...

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) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the stat ...

has rated its conservation status as being of "

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

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, habitat refers to the array of resources, 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 manifestation of its ...

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, mating behavior exhibited by some External fertilization, externally fertilizing species (chiefly amphibians, Amphipoda, amphipods, and horseshoe crabs) in which a male grasps a female with his fro ...

, 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 transformation or hatching, involving a conspicuous and relatively abrupt change in the animal's body structure through cell growth and different ...

a few days later into juvenile frogs.

References

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