Craugastor rugosus

A local Spanish vernacular name is ranita de hojarasca. Frank and Ramus (1995) invented the name Veragua robber frog for use in English for the taxon Eleutherodactylus biporcatus (now the name of a Venezuelan species, but in 1995 the name for four other species of frog, including this one, see taxonomy), Veragua being a province of Colombia in the 1860s (now in central Panama) where in 1995 the holotype of E. biporcatus was thought to have been obtained. Because of the taxonomic reshuffling which occurred after Frank and Ramus coined the name "Veragua robber frog", their name is presently applied to Craugastor rugosus, despite the fact that it does not occur in Veraguas Province, and now shares this name with other species derived from E. biporcatus. ==Taxonomy==

This frog is thought to have first been collected in Chiriquí whilst the region was still Colombian (Panama succeeded a few decades later) by one H. Ribbe, who sent a collection of herpetological specimens to Berlin in the early 1870s. It was then given the name Hylodes rugosus by Wilhelm Peters in 1873 in a lecture read before the Royal Prussian Academy of Science. A formal description was published in an untitled summary of this lecture (later titled as Über eine neue Schildkrötenart, Cinosternon effeldtii und einige andere neue oder weniger bekannte Amphibien) a year later (although dated to the previous year) by an anonymous author (edited by Ernst Kummer) in the monthly notice of the academy. In 1877 the famous US fossil baron Edward Drinker Cope, having received a frog specimen from somewhere on the west coast of Central America (fide Cochran (1961)), described it as Lithodytes pelviculus. This specimen is preserved as USNM32326 according to Darrel R. Frost, In 1881 Paul Brocchi reclassified this taxon under the genus Hylodes. Unfortunately the type specimen for this taxon is lost (fide Savage and Myers (2002)). In 2014 Frost accepted Savage and Myers' 2002 synonymy. but as of 2014 is placed in the family Craugastoridae. In 1989 Stephen Blair Hedges classified Eleutherodactylus florulentus, as specimens of this species were known at the time, in the subgenus Craugastor. In 2008 Hedges, Duellman and Heinicke also classified C. rugosus in the subgenus Craugastor. Savage includes this species in his Eleutherodactylus fitzingeri series, E. biporcatus group in 2002. Hedges, Duellman and Heinicke place it in their Craugastor gulosus series in 2008. Padial, Grant and Frost classify it under their C. punctariolus series in 2014. ==Description==

These are relatively big rain frogs with a large head (females to in snout–vent length, males to ). The eyes have a black iris and the upper eyelid is covered in warts and bumps. There are crests just behind the eyes. The dorsum (back) is covered in warts and the creature appears much like a toad. There are hourglass-shaped ridges on the upper back, these are lined in lighter coloured stripes. There is no webbing between the digits of the limbs. The dorsum is dark brown, dark grey, or black in colour. The ventral surface of the animal is mottled brown with white and red. The ventral surfaces of the thighs may be either yellowish or orange. The inner thighs are ornamented with alternating bars of black and bright scarlet red; the black bars continue to the dorsal surface of the thighs. The groin has bright white and black marks. The juveniles are coloured differently than the adults: the dorsal warts are tipped in white at first but darken with age, the inner thighs are barred with white and black, and the ventral surfaces of the legs and groin are orange-red. According to Noble, it has a noticeably thicker and more robust stomach wall than other species of Eleutherodactylus (now split into Craugastor and other genera), but he was dissecting a mix of different species, mostly C. megacephalus, in order to describe C. rugosus. This frog is thought likely to not make a mating call. It has a karyotype of 2n= 20. Similar species It is easily told apart from most species of Craugastor which occur in the same region by the head being broader than long. The most similar species are C. megacephalus and C. gulosus, but both are much larger species. C. opimus from South America is also very similar, but does not occur sympatrically. ==Distribution==

Although the distribution of this species at present is believed to be mostly restricted to eastern Costa Rica, initially it was in fact believed not to occur in this country and to exist in two disjunct populations in Nicaragua and Panama, this situation persisting until at least 1923 (fide Fritz Nieden). During the time Nicaragua was occupied by the USA, of the 31 specimens formerly thought to be C. rugosus two specimens which were collected at what the Americans called "Tuli Creek" in 1916 (the Tule River in south of San Miguelito in Río San Juan Department), are still labelled as such, also kept at the MCZ, and the MCZ furthermore has a specimen said to be collected in 1992 at the Escondido River near Bluefields in Nicaragua. It is seen in Costa Rica in the Carara National Park, the Fila Chonta mountains, the Osa Peninsula and in the harbour town of Quepos, all in Puntarenas Province. ==Ecology==

This frog can be found in humid and hot tropical lowland rainforests, moist premontane forest, secondary forest, plantations and heavily altered former forest habitats. It is usually found amongst the leaf litter of the forest. It has been seen hopping on the forest floor during the day. According to Savage (2002) it is found at altitudes from to above sea level. It is likely an ambush predator which generally preys on beetles, but may also attack lizards and other frogs. ==Conservation==

According to the IUCN it was threatened by habitat loss in 2004. and at least historically in the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve area. ==References==