Tlalocohyla celeste

The Tapir Valley tree frog or loquacious tree frog (Tlalocohyla celeste) is a frog that lives in Costa Rica. Scientists first saw it in the Tapir Valley Nature Reserve, about 660 meters above sea level.

The adult male frog is about 20.10 - 21.45 mm long snout-vent length and the female frog is about 24.55 mm long. It has a round nose a thin legs.

This frog has green skin, and the skin of its belly is clear.  It looks like a glass frog, but this frog has stripes and glass frogs do not. Male frogs can be different colors from female frogs, and individual frogs can be different colors during the day and at night.
At night, this frog is yellow-green on the head, back, and legs, and its belly is mostly clear and a little blue with a white stripe on the back and side from the eye to where the back legs meet the body. There is a dark red stripe from the eye to the end of the nose and many red spots on the head, back, and legs. The iris of the eye is gold in color. During the day, the red stripes are less red and the frog looks green in color. The eyes are then silver-gray.

The female frog lays eggs on the ends of leaves that reach down toward the water. The eggs take ten days to hatch. When the eggs hatch, the tadpoles fall into water below. The tadpole has a yellow head and some red spots.

The Tapir Valley Nature Reserve was once pasture, a place for human beings' animals to eat grass. People changed it back so that animals would have a place to live. Because the frog appeared there, it must have been living somewhere else. Scientists think this frog is resistant to dying out.

First paper

References

Category:Frogs of North America