Hyloxalus marmoreoventris

The Rio Negro rocket frog (Hyloxalus marmoreoventris) is a frog.  It lives in Ecuador.

Body
The adult male frog is about 21.7 mm long from nose to rear end. The adult male frog has white spots.

Home
Scientists saw this frog in a forest on a mountain 1225 meters above sea level.  This is a cloud forest, where between 2000 and 4000 mm of rain or other weather falls every year, and the temperature is between 18 and 24°C.  It lives in the same places as Hyloxalus bocagei, Allobates kingsburyi, and Hyloxalus pulchellus.

Scientists saw this frog in a protected park: Parque Nacional Rio Negro Sopladora.

Young
Scientists are not sure how the frog makes its young, but they think the tadpoles swim in streams.

Danger
Many of these frogs died in the 1980s from changes in the weather and the fungal disease chytridiomycosis.  The forest where scientists first found the frog has been cut down, but there are enough other forests nearby that scientists thing some frogs might still be alive there: Parque Nacional Llanganates and Parque Nacional Sangay. If they are not all dead, then only 49 or fewer are alive today.

Human beings keep changing that place by cutting down trees to make farms and get wood to build with.  Bad chemicals in the water and animals from other parts of the world can also hurt this frog. Because of this, scientists say the frog is critically endangered, or in very big danger of dying out.

References

Category:Frogs of South America