Silverstoneia punctiventris

The Silverstoneia punctiventris is a frog.  It lives in  Colombia, in Chocó.

Body
The adult male frog is 16.8 to 17.6 mm long from nose to rear end and the adult female frog is 17.7 to 20.3 mm long.  The skin of the frog's front of the neck has dark brown or black spots on it. Scientists use these spots to tell whether a frog is S. punctiventris or another frog in Silverstoneia, because other frogs have different spots or no spots at all. The skin of the frog's back is dark brown in color with a white stripe on each side of the body and a dark brown or black color near the hips.  There is some bronze color on the mouth. There is some yellow color on the back legs and some green color on the bottoms of the back legs. The belly and throat are white. The iris of the eye is gold in color.

Home
This frog lives on the ground in rainforests near streams with clear water and rocks on the bottom. People have seen this frog between 80 and 200  meters above sea level on Serranía del Baudó. People have seen the frog in forests that have been cut down and are growing back and in tree farms. Like other frogs in Silverstoneia, this frog moves around during the day and sleeps at night.

Chemicals
This frog has chemicals in its skin. Scientists think these chemicals make it taste and smell bad to animals that eat frogs. Or the chemicals might make the frog harder to smell at all.

Name
Scientists named this frog puncti for "dot" and ventris for "lower side" because of the spots on the lower side of its throat.

Young
Male frogs fight each other for good places for females to lay eggs. They call to the females from high plants. Scientists think the female frog lays eggs in dead leaves on the ground and that, after the eggs hatch, the adult frogs carry the tadpoles streams. The scientists think this because that is what other frogs in Silverstoneia do. They have not seen Silverstoneia punctiventris frogs lay eggs or move tadpoles.

Danger
Scientists believe this frog is in danger of dying out because it lives in a small place. They are not sure what other dangers there are because it is not easy to travel to the frog's home to look. People cut down the forest where the frog lives to get wood to build with and grow plants against the law. People also dig metal out of the ground nearby. Scientists also worry that human beings could catch this frog to sell as a pet. 

This frog lives near a protected park, Parque Nacional Natural Utría, but scientists don't know if it lives in the park.

First paper

References

Category:Frogs of South America