Agalychnis lemur

The lemur leaf frog or lemur frog (Agalychnis lemur) is a frog that lives in Colombia, Costa Rica, and Panama.  Scientists have seen it between 440 and 1600 meters above sea level.

Appearance

The adult male frog is 30 to 41 mm long from nose to rear end, and the adult female frog is 39 to 53 mm long.

This frog changes color.  During the day it is pale green.  At night, it is red-brown, lavender-brown, or orange.  Its belly is white.  The irises of its eyes are silver-white.

Food
During the day, this frog sleeps on the undersides of leaves.  It looks for food at night.

Reproduction

The female frog lays eggs on top of leaves hanging over the water.  There are 10-15 eggs in each clutch.  The frog may lay three clutches in a night.  The eggs are 3 to 3.5 mm in diameter, not including the capsule around each egg.  The eggs take one to two weeks to hatch.  Then the tadpoles fall off the leaf into the water below.

The tadpoles can grow over 4 cm long.  Their bodies are gray and their bellies are yellow-pink.

The tadpoles look for food in the water and on the bottom.  They take 69 to 98 days to become frogs.

Threats

This frog has already gone extinct in some of the places it used to live.  This may be because humans have changed the forests where it used to live by cutting down trees for lumber and because of disease.  For example, the fungal disease chytridiomycosis.

References

Category:Frogs of South America