Ameerega parvula

The ruby poison frog, ruby poison arrow frog, or Valle Santiago rocket frog (Ameerega parvula) is a frog.  It lives in Ecuador and Peru.

Body
The adult male frogs are 17.5 mm to 22.5 mm long from nose to rear end and the adult females 19 mm to 24 long. Much of the frog's body is black in color. The skin of the frog's back is dark red in color with spots. The belly and legs are either black with a blue pattern or blue with a black pattern. There is a light blue stripe from the front legs to the mouth or eye. There is a yellow or blue spot on each leg near the body.

Name
Scientists named this frog parvula from the Latin word parvulus, which means "young."

Home
This frog is awake during the day. People have seen this on the dead leaves on the ground near streams in rainforests. It can live in forests that were cut down and are growing back. Scientists saw the frog between 150 and 1200 meters above sea level.

Many of the places the frog lives are protected parks, for example Parque Nacional Yasuní, Parque Nacional Sangay, Limoncocha Reserva Biológica, and the Santiago Comaina Reserved Zone.

Young
The female frog lays her eggs on the ground.  After the eggs hatch, the frogs carry the tadpoles to water.

The tadpoles are 12.10 to 27.13 mm long during one part of their lives. brown in color with dark brown-black spots. The tail is light brown near the body and lighter gray-tan near the end. There are small gray and brown spots on the tail. The top fin is clear. The belly is clear so that people can see the organs inside.

Young frogs are blue-black in color. Some of them do not have spots.

Danger
Scientists say this frog is not in danger of dying out. Humans do change the places where the frog lives in some places to make farms and places for animals to eat grass. Some people may catch this frog to sell as a pet.

References

Category:Frogs of South America
Category:Poison dart frogs