Hyloxalus mystax

The cloud forest rocket frog (Hyloxalus mystax) is a frog.  It lives in Ecuador.

Body
The adult male frog is about 19.5–21.5 mm long from nose to rear end and the adult female frog is 19.2–21.8 mm long. The skin of the frog's back is brown in color with darker brown marks. There is a dark brown line along each side of the body. There is lighter color under the eye all the way to the start of the frog leg. There are lighter lines on other parts of the body. The sides of the body are dark brown in color, and the belly is almost white in color with darker marks. The throat is white. The male frog has dark spots on its throat. It has a light line near its mouth that looks like a mustache. The place where the back legs meet the body is yellow in color. The bottoms of the feet are yellow in color. The male frog's male organs are white in color. The iris of the eye is brown in color.

Name
Scientists named this frog mystax because it is like the Greek word for "mustache." The frog has a line on its face that looks like a mustache.

Home
This frog lives in cloud forests on mountains.  They live near bromeliad plants. Scientists have seen frogs on the ground during the day and resting on low plants at night. Scientists saw these frogs between  1420 and 2350 meters above sea level.

Scientists saw the frog one protected park, Reserva Biológica Cerro Plateado. They think it might live in two other parks: Reserva Biológica El Quimi and Refugio de Vida Silvestre El Zarza.

Young
Scientists found a male frog calling from the bottom of a tree. Scientists think that the frog has young in streams.

Danger
Scientists say the frog is in big danger of dying out.  They think that, by 2033, there will be half as many of these frogs alive as in 2023. The frogs are dying because people change the places where the frogs live by cutting down trees so they can dig copper and gold out of the ground.

References

Category:Frogs of South America