Allobates chalcopis

The Martinique volcano frog or ravine rocket frog (Allobates chalcopis) is a frog.  It lives in Martinique.

Body
The adult male frog is 17.4 mm long from nose to rear end and the adult female frog is 16.1-18.4 mm long.  Its eyes are bigger than its eardrums. The skin of the frog's back is light brown with darker brown marks. There is a mark shaped like a triangle between the eyes.  There is a mark in the shape of the letter U on the nose.   The adult male frog has black color on the throat orange color on the belly and the female frog has an orange throat and belly.  The iris of the eye is brown in color with some copper color.

Home

This is the only frog in Dendrobatidae that lives on an island in the ocean. Scientists are not sure how it came to Martinique. Dendrobatid frogs are so small and so sensitive to salt that they do not cross oceans well.

People have seen this frog in grassy places with many fern plants in them.  It lives high in the hills where the air is cold at night (12°C) and where there is never less than 200 mm of water in the weather each month.  Scientists saw the frog between 800 and 1400 meters above sea level.

Scientists think the frog might live in some protected parks: Réserve Biologique Intégrale des Pitons du Carbet and Réserve Biologique Intégrale de la Montagne Pelée.

Young
Scientists saw one group of eggs on a palm leaf on other dead leaves. The tadpoles grow into froglets while they are still in the nest.

Danger
Scientists say this frog is in very big danger of dying out.  Bad chemicals that people use to make banana plants grow can hurt this frog. Scientists saw that the frogs have moved higher up into the mountains, and they think this is because of climate change. They think climate change is a danger to this frog. Animals that move high into the mountains are in danger because they cannot move north when the world becomes too warm. They would have to go down into even warmer places first.

References

Category:Frogs of South America
Category:Poison dart frogs