Ranitomeya ventrimaculata

The Amazonian poison frog (Ranitomeya ventrimaculata) is a frog.  It lives in Colombia, Peru, Brazil, and Ecuador.

Body
The adult male frog is 15.0–17.09 mm long from nose to rear end and the adult female frog is about 16.0–18.0 mm long. This frog is small. The body is black in color with bright red or gray lines and a red or orange throat. The belly has blue patterns on it.

Name
Scientists named this frog ventrimaculata in Latin because that means "spots on its belly."

Home
This frog lives in the big forest around the Amazon River. It lives in parts of forest that have never been cut down and that have deep dead leaves on the ground and lots of smaller plants under the trees. People have seen this frog between 200 and 500 meters above sea level. This frog is awake during the day.

Young
Scientists have seen male frogs carrying tadpoles on their backs, but they do not know if the female frog lays eggs in the dead leaves on the grounds or in pools of water in bromeliad plants.

Danger
Scientists believe this frog is not danger of dying out because it lives in a large place and because there are so many of them. But it is in some danger because people cut down trees to build farms and get wood to build with. Scientists also think people might start to catch this frog to sell as a pet.

Many of the places this frog lives are protected parks, for example Parque Nacional Yasuní, Comunidad Sarayaku, Estación de Biodiversidad Tiputini, and Reserva Comunal Tamshiyacu Tahuayo.

References

Category:Frogs of South America