''Tachiramantis tayrona'' is a species of frog in the family Strabomantidae. It is endemic to the north-western Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia. 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 ...

''tayrona'' refers to the pre-Columbian Tairona culture. Lynch and Ruíz-Carranza suggest that this species might have been a model for the gold frogs unearthed from archaeological sites in the area.

Description

Males measure and females in

snout–vent length Snout–vent length (SVL) is a morphometric measurement taken in herpetology from the tip of the snout to the most posterior opening of the cloacal slit (vent)."direct line distance from tip of snout to posterior margin of vent" It is the most c ...

. The head is narrower than the body, and the tip of snout is pointed. The tympanum is distinct. The skin of the dorsum is smooth to shagreened, with many small, short ridges. Colouration is reddish-brown above, with slightly darker flanks. The face is dark brown, and the vocal sac is dirty yellow. The venter is pale yellow bronze washed with grey. The iris is reddish-brown above and grey below. When present, the vertebral stripe is dull cream to dull orange. All fingers have expanded pads at the tips of digits, those on the toes are similarly expanded or smaller.

Habitat and conservation

''Tachiramantis tayrona'' inhabits

cloud forest A cloud forest, also called a water forest, primas forest, or tropical montane cloud forest (TMCF), is a generally tropical or subtropical, evergreen, montane, moist forest characterized by a persistent, frequent or seasonal low-level cloud c ...

s and

páramo Páramo () can refer to a variety of alpine tundra ecosystems located in the Andes Mountain Range, South America. Some ecologists describe the páramo broadly as "all high, tropical, montane vegetation above the continuous timberline". A narrower ...

s 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 ...

. It occurs in and on arboreal

bromeliad 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, ...

s, which also are its breeding habitat. It shares this habitat with Savage's salamander ''Bolitoglossa savagei''. It is threatened by habitat loss caused by cultivation and fumigation of crops and rearing of livestock. Part of the range is protected in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta National Park.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tachiramantis Tayrona Frogs of South America Endemic fauna of Colombia Amphibians of Colombia Amphibians described in 1985 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot