Spiny-headed Tree Frog
Facts about this animal
Size from 68 mm (males) to 80 mm (females). This frog is unmistakable with sharp pointed projections on the head and a huge tympanum. It is light brown with darker brown markings with a black belly and flanks bordered with white. It is a nocturnal and arboreal species, which is difficult to find. The male attracts the female by calling from treeholes or bamboo internodes containing water or from bromeliads. Eggs are laid into a treehole during daytime. The fertilized eggs are attached to the wall of the container or on the leaves of bromeliads just above the surface of the water.
Male and female leave the container and the male may return and mate again with the female or may occupy another container and start calling again. 50-300 eggs are laid at a time. But only 1-25 white larvae hatch after 6-7 days. Then the female returns and lays another 10-30 unfertilized eggs over the next 14 days, which provide food for the tadpoles. If a second clutch of fertilized eggs are laid, the subsequent larvae disappear within two days, apparently eaten by their older siblings. After 60-132 days 1-16 metamorphose.
Did you know?
The call is a loud "boop-boop-boop" and can be heard up to 100 m away?
|Name (Scientific)||Anotheca spinosa|
|Name (English)||Spiny-headed Tree Frog|
|Name (French)||Rainette épineuse|
|Name (Spanish)||Rana-de árbol coronada|
|CITES Status||Not listed|
|CMS Status||Not listed|
Photo Copyright by
© Gerald Dick
|Range||Costa Rica, Honduras, Mexico, Panama|
|Habitat||This species is found as fragmented populations, living in lowland rainforests and montane humid forests from 95 to 2000 m asl.|
|Wild population||In Costa Rica, this has always been a rarely seen species, but its call can be heard regularly in the appropriate habitat. Although several populations are known in Mexico, these are completely disjunctive and it seems that the species has been extirpated from one or two locations. In fact it has been found only once in the last 30 years in Mexico. In Honduras, it is known only from two specimens and there are no recent data from Panama. The most important threats to it are disturbance, clearance and transformation of its original habitat, arising from small-holder farming and subsistence-level gathering of wood. Protection and restoration of the vegetation coverage is a way to protect the microhabitat of this species.The population trend is decreasing (Red List IUCN 2012).|
|Zoo population||2 reported to ISIS (2007)|
In the Zoo
How this animal should be transported
For air transport, Container Note 45 of the IATA Live Animals Regulations should be followed.
Find this animal on ZooLex
Photo Copyright by
© Josiah H. Townsend
Why do zoos keep this animal
Neotropical frogs are threatened by habitat distruction, disease and other factors. Zoos and aquariums keeping these species want to build up reserve populations and to raise awareness of the global amphibian crisis. Several zoos have also linked their ex situ activities with involvement in in situ conservation.