Taxonomy and ecology of Dendrobates bombetes, a new Andean poison frog with new skin toxins

Title Variants

Alternative: Andean poison frog

Related Titles

Series: American Museum novitates, no. 2692

By

Myers, Charles W.

Daly, John W.

Type

Book

Material

Published material

Publication info

New York, N.Y, American Museum of Natural History, c1980

Notes

Title from caption.

"January 29, 1980."

"Dendrobates bombetes, new species, is a small, red-striped frog inhabiting the western Andes near Cali, Colombia. Nearest relatives are the Ecuadoran D. abditus and the northern Colombian D. opisthomelas; these three Andean species are considered a monophyletic unit of the 'minutus group' because of a larval synapomorphy. The name D. reticulatus is resurrected from the synonymy of D. quinquevittatus in Amazonian Peru. Dendrobates bombetes was found in two forest types at localities separated by 30 km. distance and 800 m. elevation. Differences in population structure suggest the possibility that either reproductive success or juvenile survivorship may be inversely density dependent. Cool montane forest islands supported dense, presumably stable populations having few juveniles and a high proportion of large (old?) adults. Marginal habitat in relatively xeric gallery forest supported a small population having significantly more juveniles and smaller (younger?) adults, suggesting rapid turnover in a precarious habitat. One or two tadpoles were carried by male nurse frogs, but free-living larvae were not found. The call is a short, surprisingly loud and far-carrying, insect-like buzz influenced by ambient temperature. Rising temperature causes pulse rate to increase and call length to decrease; the second effect probably reinforces the first, since there seems to be an independent tendency for short calls to be pulsed faster than long ones. The call of a related species, Dendrobates opisthomelas, differs even at the same temperature in duration, pulse rate, and dominant frequency. Defensive skin secretions of Dendrobates bombetes contained 22 piperidine alkaloids in the two sampled populations, with 15 or 17 compounds each. Interpopulational variation is partly due to minor differences in degree of saturation of some compounds, and the gas chromatographic profiles are therefore much alike even though the shared-alkaloid value is low (67%). Three new alkaloids form at least a natural subgroup in the pumiliotoxin-A class, to which they are tentatively assigned in spite of anomalous mass spectra; a fourth new alkaloid is placed in the pumiliotoxin-C class"--P. [1].

Subjects

Alkaloids , Amphibians , Classification , Colombia , Dendrobates bombetes , Frogs , Poisonous animals , Toxins

Call Number

QL1 .A436 no.2692, 1980

Language

English

Identifiers

LCCN: https://lccn.loc.gov/80107850
OCLC: 6424731810106