Q is for Quito Rocket Frog

Liz Brownlee ♦ April 19, 2012 ♦ 5 Comments

Yes – Q is another frog! They are my favourite animal, that’s my excuse.

The tiny (snout to vent about 1.25cm) Quito rocket frog is from the valleys and slopes of the Andes, in mid to high elevation, humid, montane forests.

Not much is know about it – it is a mossy green colour with cream, has a racing stripe down its side, and a reddy-orange patch on its chest. It has no webbing, and it can jump, like all rocket frogs, straight upwards very high compared to its size.

Nobody knows what its call sounds like – or if it has one. But other frogs in this group trill, peep or buzz.

It hasn’t been seen since the 1960s – so it is either very, very rare or extinct.

It is classified by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species as Critically Endangered, with the possibility of the Ecuadorian numbers extinct.

Rocket Frog

Little frog I wish I knew
what it is that flying frogs do,
up above the world so high
like a rocket in the sky,
little frog I wish I knew
just what it is that flying frogs do…

References:

Ecuadorian frogs of the genus Colostethus (Anura:Dendrobatidae) by Coloma, Luis A., University of Kansas Natural History Museum, available here: Ecuadorian frogs.

Read about the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species here: IUCN Red List.

If you’d like to ‘blog hop’ to another A-Z challenge blog, click here: A-Z Challenge.

Illustration and poem and everything not mentioned as covered by other copyright, © Liz Brownlee – this post is copyright material with all rights reserved, please do not re-post elsewhere – you may link to it.