Pseudophilautus decoris

The elegant shrub frog (Pseudophilautus decoris) is a frog.  It lives in two places in Sri Lanka, one 60 m above sea level and one 1060 meters above sea level.

The adult male frog is 18.3–20.6 mm long from nose to rear end and the adult female frog is 19.0–23.9 mm long. The skin of the frog's back is gray-brown in color with dark brown bands and other marks. There is some yellow-green color on the shoulders and red-brown color in the middle., and two black stripes. The sides of the body are yellow-gray in color with some dark brown marks. Parts of the back legs are light blue in color. The belly is yellow with small black spots. The bottoms of the feet are black with white marks.

The female frog lays 6-155 eggs at a time. She mixes them into the dirt. Scientists think this means more air will reach the eggs this way. Inside the eggs, the growing frogs look like tadpoles, but they hatch as small frogs.  The young frogs are the same colors as the adult frogs.

There are fewer of this frog than there were. It is in danger of being dead. Scientists say this is because human beings change the places where the frog lives to get wood to build things with or make places for animals to eat grass and because of climate change and new chemicals near where the frog lives. Other animals also eat this frog. Some of them have been in the frog's habitat for many years. Others were brought there by human beings. Scientists are not sure whether the fungal disease chytridiomycosis is in Sri Lanka. Chytridiomycosis has killed frogs in other parts of the world.

The scientific name decoris comes from a Greek word meaning "beautiful" or "elegant."

First paper

References

Category:Frogs of Asia