Epipedobates

Epipedobates is a group of poison dart frogs. They live in northern South America (Colombia and Ecuador) west of the Andes Mountains and on the west sides of the mountains. People call them phantasmal poison frogs in English.

Taxonomy
Scientists made the group Epipedobates in 1987 because they wanted to take the big family Dendrobatidae and put it in smaller groups, especially species that had been in the genus Phyllobates. In 2006, scientists moved many of the frogs in Epipedobates to Ameerega, leaving five. The species count of Epipedobates had increased to seven by early 2024.

Bodies
The skin of the frogs' backs is colored brown to make them hard to see. There is a light stripe down the side of the body. The skin of the back is smooth or has only a few small bumps. In adult males, third finger is fat.

Species
There are seven species:
 Image  Scientific name   Common name  Distribution120px   Epipedobates anthonyi (Noble, 1921)   Anthony's poison arrow frog Ecuador and Peru.   Epipedobates boulengeri (Barbour, 1909)   marbled poison frog or marbled poison-arrow frog Colombia (Cauca, Nariño, Valle del Cauca Departments, including Gorgona Island) and northwestern Ecuador120px  Epipedobates espinosai (Funkhouser, 1956)   Ecuador   Epipedobates machalilla (Coloma, 1995)   West Ecuador  Epipedobates maculatus (Peters, 1873)  Confusing Poison Frog  Panama Epipedobates narinensis (Mueses-Cisneros, Cepeda-Quilindo, and Moreno-Quintero, 2008) Colombia120px   Epipedobates tricolor (Boulenger, 1899)   Phantasmal poison frog Ecuador

References

Category:Poison dart frogs
Category:Frogs of South America