''Leptodactylus spixi'' 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

Leptodactylidae The southern frogs form the Leptodactylidae, a name that comes from Greek meaning a bird or other animal having slender toes. They are a diverse Family (biology), family of frogs that most likely diverged from other hyloidea, hyloids during the C ...

. 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 eastern

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 occurs in the Atlantic forests of the

Bahia Bahia ( , , ; meaning "bay") is one of the 26 Federative units of Brazil, states of Brazil, located in the Northeast Region, Brazil, Northeast Region of the country. It is the fourth-largest Brazilian state by population (after São Paulo (sta ...

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

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 ...

states. 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 ...

''spixi'' honors

Johann Baptist von Spix Johann Baptist Ritter von Spix (9 February 1781 – 13 March 1826) was a German natural history, biologist. From his expedition to Brazil, he brought to Germany a large variety of specimens of plants, insects, mammals, birds, amphibians and fish. ...

, a German naturalist who worked in Brazil. Prior to its

description Description is the pattern of narrative development that aims to make vivid a place, object, character, or group. Description is one of four rhetorical modes (also known as ''modes of discourse''), along with exposition, argumentation, and narr ...

, this species had been referred to as ''

Leptodactylus mystaceus ''Leptodactylus mystaceus'' is a species of frog in the family Leptodactylidae. It is also known as the common toad-frog. It is found in northern South America. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests, moist savann ...

'' (Spix, 1824). Common name Spix's white-lipped frog has been coined for this species.

Description

Adult males measure and adult females in snout–vent length; sexual size dimorphism is not significant in this species. The snout is subelliptical from above and rounded with protruding ridge in lateral profile. The tympanum is large and distinct, as is the supratympanic fold. The dorsum is smooth but has a pair of well-developed dorsolateral folds from behind eye to hind leg. The dorsum has irregular darker brown markings on lighter brown background. The markings include an irregular interorbital backward-pointing triangle and chevrons in the suprascapular region. The dorsolateral folds are barely highlighted by darker brown color. A dark canthal stripe runs from the nostril to the tympanum, interrupted by eye. A distinct light stripe runs from the tip of the snout, below the dark canthal stripe, under eye and tympanum to angle of jaw. The upper lip has slightly darker shading below the light stripe The limbs are barred above. The venter is immaculate. Some individuals lack markings, while a light mid-dorsal stripe is seldom present. Males have a slight external lateral vocal fold but no well-developed

vocal sac The vocal sac is the flexible membrane of skin possessed by most male frogs and toads. The purpose of the vocal sac is usually as an amplification of their mating or advertisement call. The presence or development of the vocal sac is one way o ...

Habitat and conservation

''Leptodactylus spixi'' occurs in the

Atlantic Forest The Atlantic Forest ( pt, Mata Atlântica) is a South American forest that extends along the Atlantic coast of Brazil from Rio Grande do Norte state in the northeast to Rio Grande do Sul state in the south and inland as far as Paraguay and th ...

. When last assessed by

IUCN 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 ...

, this species was considered very common and 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 ...

". However, this information pertains to species delimitation that is broader (range extending north to

Ceará Ceará (, pronounced locally as or ) is one of the 26 states of Brazil, located in the northeastern part of the country, on the Atlantic coast. It is the eighth-largest Brazilian State by population and the 17th by area. It is also one of the ...

) than currently applied.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q2240066 spixi Endemic fauna of Brazil Amphibians described in 1983 Amphibians of Brazil Taxonomy articles created by Polbot