Telmatobius

Telmatobius is a group of frogs that live in the Andean mountains and other high places in South America, in Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, northwestern Argentina and northern Chile. It is the only genus in the family Telmatobiidae. Some scientists say Batrachophrynus is its own genus, separate Telmatobius.
Name
The word Telmatobius is from the Greek: τέλμα (télma, "swamp") and βίος (bios, "life").

 Home and danger
All Telmatobius species live near water and most of them spend a lot of time in the water. A few of these frogs spend all their time in the water.Angulo, A. (2008). Conservation Needs of Batrachophrynus and Telmatobius Frogs of the Andes of Peru. Conservation & Society 6(4): 328–333. DOI: 10.4103/0972-4923.49196 They live in and near lakes, rivers, and other watery places in the Andean highlands. People have seen them between .Victoriano, Muñoz-Mendoza, Sáez, Salinas, Muñoz-Ramírez, Sallaberry, Fibla and Méndez (2015). Evolution and Conservation on Top of the World: Phylogeography of the Marbled Water Frog (Telmatobius marmoratus Species Complex; Anura, Telmatobiidae) in Protected Areas of Chile. J.Hered. 106 (S1): 546–559. DOI: 10.1093/jhered/esv039 The group Telmatobius has two of the world's biggest water frogs, the Lake Junin frog (T. macrostomus) and Titicaca water frog (T. culeus),Halliday, T. (2016). The Book of Frogs: A Life-Size Guide to Six Hundred Species from around the World. University Of Chicago Press.  but the other frogs in this group are smaller. The species with the biggest tadpoles tend to live in higher places, for example T. culeus, T. macrostomus, T. mayoloi, and T. gigas. Telmatobius has more than 60 species; most of them in some danger of dying out, especially from people changing the places where they live, pollution, diseases (chytridiomycosis and nematode infections), animals from other parts of the world for example trout, and humans catching the frogs to eat.Stuart, Hoffmann, Chanson, Cox, Berridge, Ramani and Young, editors (2008). Threatened Amphibians of the World. 

The three frogs that live in Ecuador have not been seen for years and may already be all dead: T. cirrhacelis was last seen in 1981, T. niger in 1994, and T. vellardi in 1987. Seven of the fifteen frogs in Bolivia have not been seen for years. However, some might still be alive: the Bolivian T. yuracare had not been seen in the wild in ten years and there was only a single male frog living with humans. People found a few wild frogs in 2019.

 Species 
Scientists put 63 species in this group, but other scientists say some of them should be in other groups. Scientists also say there may be frogs that no one has written papers about yet that belong in this group.De la Riva (2005). Bolivian frogs of the genus Telmatobius: synopsis, taxonomic comments, and description of a new species. Monogr. Herpetol. 7:65-101.Sáez, Fibla, Correa, Sallaberry, Salinas, Veloso, Mella, Iturra, and Méndez (2014). A new endemic lineage of the Andean frog genus Telmatobius (Anura, Telmatobiidae) from the western slopes of the central Andes. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 171: 769–782.

References

Other websites

BBC News 4/29/05

Category:Frogs of South America