Excidobates captivus

The Rio Santiago poison frog (Excidobates captivus) is a frog.  It lives in  Peru and Ecuador.

Body
The adult frog is about 15-17 mm long from nose to rear end.  The skin of the frog's back is black with red-orange spots or other marks. It also has yellow spots where all four legs meet the body. The belly is black with yellow spots.

Home
This frog is awake during the day. It lives in forests near streams with Heliconia plants growing nearby. It lives in forests that are not too high up in the mountains. People have seen this frog between 177 and 800 meters above sea level.

Young
Scientists have seen male frogs carrying tadpoles on their backs. The tadpoles are black in color. Their bellies are black and look like metal. The fins are clear.

The male frog calls to the female frogs from far away.  When the female comes to him, he calls a different call. Then he leads her to a good place to lay eggs. She lays the eggs on the dead leaves on the ground. The male frog takes care of the eggs after the female lays them. He makes sure they do not become too dry. The eggs hatch into tadpoles after 14 days. Then the male frog carries the tadpoles to pools of water in streams.

Young frogs are dark brown or black in color with two yellow stripes.

Danger
Between 1929 and 2006, scientists did not see this frog. The two groups of Indigenous peoples who live in the same place as the frog were fighting each other, so other people did not go there.

Scientists say this frog is in some danger of dying out because people change the places where the frog lives to make farms, build roads, and do other things.

People dig for gold near where the frog lives, but scientists do not know if this hurts the frog or not.

References

Category:Frogs of South America