# Oophaga sp. Escudo de Veraguas?



## MELLOWROO421

The new Bri Bri magazine that has just been put out has an article that says the Oophaga pumilio "Escudo de Veraguas" is actually an Oophaga species that has been previously undescribed, thus technically no longer making it a pumilio. I was wondering if this study has been published somewhere else, and if there is anyone who can link me to it. 
Thanks,


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## jubjub47

Seems like i've seen escudo seperated somewhere else recently.


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## jubjub47

Google Translate

Here's a bit more


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## Julio

i thought this was done about 2 years ago? not recent


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## thedude

i had heard about this too. also, all of the blue jean morphs are actually oophaga sp. typographica. i saw that on a european site. apparently there are way more than just 1 blue jean morph.


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## skylsdale

From what I understand, genetic testing on the Escudo population has been done (via Haggemann), but the results/paper have not yet been published.

Whether or not this is a seperate species remains to be seen (and probably the subject of much continuing debate). Escudo de Veraguas is a small island off the coast of the mainland, and on the side of the Valiente Peninsula facing Escudo, there is a population of almost identical frogs. This was most likely a single population however many thousand years ago a land bridge existed there...until sea levels rose, creating the island and creating a rift within the population. Perhaps the frogs on Escudo are on their way to becoming a seperate species...but are they there yet? It's hard to say...at which point does hot become cold? 

Given island biogeography, I'm sure changes are taking place (I believe it generally has a slightly smaller body size and higher pitch call than it's mainland "brethren"), which seems to fit the trends of insular evolution. But whether it's something other than Oophaga pumilio at this point?


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## MonarchzMan

Hagemann and Prohl published a pumilio phylogeny in 2007 based on mitochondrial data and they ended up wanting to split Escudo into one species, Bocas pumilio into another species, and the Costa Rica/Nicaraguan pumilio into a third species. The Europeans have generally accepted this and now consider the Escudos to be a separate species (I am unsure if they also consider the northern pumilio to be a separate species).

Personally, I'm not convinced for a number of reasons. First, the paper in question did not look at all at the Valiente Peninsula, which is the closest populations to Escudo (and presumably the most closely related). Second, as far as I can tell, they are behaviorally the same, and the calls seem to be very similar. Third, they found that Escudos are most closely related to Speciosus than other pumilio (which for those who don't know, Speciosus is a good distance away; they also found that Costa Rican pumilio are more closely related to Arboreus than other pumilio and if you don't know, Arboreus is closer to Escudo than CR pumilio). Fourth, new phylogenies have come out and they don't really coincide with what Hagemann and Prohl came up with. Wang and Shaffer came out with a phylogeny in 2008 that had Escudos most closely related to some Costa Rican frogs.

Escudo de Veraguas has a couple of endemic species (the Pygmy Sloth and Escudo Hummingbird, for example), and in talking to a sloth guy and an ornithologist, it sounds like there's the same criticism about those species and both of the people that I spoke with were skeptical of those species designations for many of the same reasons.

Unless more compelling evidence comes forward to support Hagemann and Prohl's suggestion, I would still consider Escudo frogs to be pumilio.


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## MonarchzMan

skylsdale said:


> Given island biogeography, I'm sure changes are taking place (I believe it generally has a slightly smaller body size and higher pitch call than it's mainland "brethren"), which seems to fit the trends of insular evolution. But whether it's something other than Oophaga pumilio at this point?


Actually, from my morphological data Escudo males are (n=14) on average 15.611mm in length. Escudo females (n=26) are on average 15.443mm. The Valiente population, which is closest, males (n=20) are 15.751mm and females (n=20) are 15.418mm. Overall averages are 15.585mm and 15.502mm for Valiente and Escudo, respectively. So if you consider the 0.08mm to be significantly smaller, than yeah, the Escudos are smaller, but personally, I'd say that they're the same size 

And by comparison, Popa Norths (n=40) average 15.520mm.


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## skylsdale

MonarchzMan said:


> Actually, from my morphological data Escudo males are (n=14) on average 15.611mm in length. Escudo females (n=26) are on average 15.443mm. The Valiente population, which is closest, males (n=20) are 15.751mm and females (n=20) are 15.418mm. Overall averages are 15.585mm and 15.502mm for Valiente and Escudo, respectively. So if you consider the 0.08mm to be significantly smaller, than yeah, the Escudos are smaller, but personally, I'd say that they're the same size
> 
> And by comparison, Popa Norths (n=40) average 15.520mm.


Ah, thanks for the details JP! I had heard the size comment via someone else...and coupled with Justin mentioning that the call was different than he was accustomed to hearing from other pumilio spp, seem to have wrongfully put 2 and 2 together.

Good to know.


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## MonarchzMan

I don't have empirical data to support calls being similar or not. I'm just basing that on what I've heard. I would guess the comparison comes from comparing 15mm frogs (Escudos) to 20mm frogs like Bastimentos. Due to the size, the smaller frogs will have a faster, higher call, but if it diverges on the sonograms, I don't know, though if I had to guess, I would say no.

I was under the same impression when I went to Escudo that they were significantly smaller than other pumilio, so I was surprised when they turned out not to be. I think I heard that they were around 12-13mm. While the stats still are in the process of being done, I think this is an additional nail in the coffin of Escudo being a separate species.


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## fishdoc

http://www.springerlink.com/content/c8534v57847763j7/fulltext.pdf

haven't read the mtDNA paper yet, but I'm glad to see they are moving into more informative markers.


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## UmbraSprite

Not sure how important the call is to determining species but I can pick my escudo out of a room of about 25 pumilio with 100% accuracy.

Bet you a cold beer!


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## uncle tom

Hi Folks
in my opinion the Escudos and also the frogs from the mainland of the Peninsula de Valiente are a different specie than pumilio. The genetics with all the Valiente frogs are done but yet not puplished. The Valiente frogs are identical with Escudos but not with Bocas pumilio. The call is definitively different. Escudo and Valiente frogs show a calling rate of 10 notes per second and a dominant frequency of 6000 Hz. Similar sized populations of Bocas Pumilio like Popa or Pastores show only dominant frequencys around 4800 Hz and a calling rate of 5 to 7 notes per second. I think this is a big difference. There are some populations of O. sylvatica with a more pumilio like call! Near the Rio Bisira the pumilio and the Escudos have their parapatric border. On the one site of the River you will find small Escudos or Valiente and on the other side a green pumilio morph. So they are divided geographically, genetically and by different calls! I think they are true species!

Uncle Tom


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## MonarchzMan

But by that logic, we should also consider Isla Colon, Bastimentos, Solarte, San Cristobal, Pastores, Popa, Loma Partida, and Cayo de Agua separate species too? I mean, they're geographically distinct, each has a unique call (relative to body size), and have some genetic divergence, as would be expected from geographical isolation of 10,000 years or so (if memory serve on when the islands came into being).

I'd say since they are so similar and do not appear to have diverged behaviorally or niche use, I'd say that they're the same. The biggest nail in the coffin for me is that phylogenies don't match up. Hopefully, the work on microsatellites will clarify things, but I would doubt it. These frogs are so closely related that the molecular data isn't going to be real conclusive, IMO.

I


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## dom

MonarchzMan said:


> Unless more compelling evidence comes forward to support Hagemann and Prohl's suggestion, I would still consider Escudo frogs to be pumilio.


has anyother information come out on this topic. Im reading some places that they have switch the 'escudo' in to its own species and some places CITIES for example still label it as O. pumilio.

cheers 
dom


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## Dancing frogs

Julio said:


> i thought this was done about 2 years ago? not recent


I heard this quite a while ago as well...


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