''Mantophryne insignis'' 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

Microhylidae The Microhylidae, commonly known as narrow-mouthed frogs, are a geographically widespread family of frogs. The 683 species are in 63 genera and 11 subfamilies, which is the largest number of genera of any frog family. Evolution A molecular phylo ...

. 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 ...

Woodlark Island Woodlark Island, known to its inhabitants simply as Woodlark or Muyua, is the main island of the Woodlark Islands archipelago, located in Milne Bay Province and the Solomon Sea, Papua New Guinea. Although no formal census has been conducted sinc ...

in the

Milne Bay Province Milne Bay is a province of Papua New Guinea. Its capital is Alotau. The province covers 14,345 km² of land and 252,990 km² of sea, within the province there are more than 600 islands, about 160 of which are inhabited. The province has a ...

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

. The specific name ''insignis'' is

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

meaning "remarkable" or "conspicuous". It refers to the distinctive colour pattern of this frog, as well as to its unusual

arboreal Arboreal locomotion is the Animal locomotion, locomotion of animals in trees. In habitats in which trees are present, animals have evolved to move in them. Some animals may scale trees only occasionally, but others are exclusively arboreal. Th ...

lifestyle within predominantly

terrestrial Terrestrial refers to things related to land or the planet Earth. Terrestrial may also refer to: * Terrestrial animal, an animal that lives on land opposed to living in water, or sometimes an animal that lives on or near the ground, as opposed to ...

genus.

Description

Adult males measure in snout–urostyle length. The body is slender and the legs are long. The snout is truncate. The tympanum is distinct. The fingers and the toes are unwebbed and bear small but distinct discs; toe discs are larger than the fingers ones. The dorsum is smooth and uniformly golden tan in colour (rarely creamy tan), surrounded by broad, blackish dorsolateral bands that are edged below with narrow, slightly undulating white stripes. All ventral surfaces have whitish ground colour. The throat and the chest are covered by variably intense brown pigmentation and scattered large dark-brown spots. The abdomen and lower parts of the flanks are covered by a pattern of very conspicuous dark-brown blotches, each encircled by a narrow white line. The

iris Iris most often refers to: *Iris (anatomy), part of the eye *Iris (mythology), a Greek goddess * ''Iris'' (plant), a genus of flowering plants *Iris (color), an ambiguous color term Iris or IRIS may also refer to: Arts and media Fictional enti ...

is silvery with a few irregular, dark lines. The male advertisement call is a rattle lasting several seconds. The dominant frequency is at 2.0 kHz.

Habitat and conservation

''Mantophryne insignis'' is known lowland rainforest 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 ...

. Males call at night. All known specimens have been found calling from various hidden perches, ranging from under a leaf on the forest floor to rocks, logs and tree buttresses at moderate heights to about above the ground in climbing

pandanus ''Pandanus'' is a genus of monocots with some 750 accepted species. They are palm-like, dioecious trees and shrubs native to the Old World tropics and subtropics. The greatest number of species are found in Madagascar and Malaysia. Common names ...

(''

Freycinetia ''Freycinetia'' is one of the five extant genera in the flowering plant family Pandanaceae. The genus comprises approximately 180–200 species, most of them climbers. The species are distributed through the tropics and subtropics of South As ...

'' sp.) plants. The body form, long legs, and expanded toe discs of this species reflects its arboreal habits, which is unusual within the genus ''Mantophryne''. ''Mantophryne insignis'' is likely to be widespread in lowland rainforest on Woodlark Island, but is not known from any other island. As of late 2019, it has not been assessed for the

IUCN Red List of Threatened Species The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biologi ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q49632836 insignis Amphibians of Papua New Guinea Endemic fauna of Papua New Guinea Woodlark Islands Amphibians described in 2016