Andinobates supata is a small, brightly colored poison frog that is endemic to a small area in the Eastern Cordillera of the Colombian Andes.
Similar species: Frogs
By Thibaud Aronson
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Uploaded Feb 18, 2023. Captured Nov 6, 2022 12:30 in Cl. 2 # 4-65, Supata, Supatá, Cundinamarca, Colombia.
comments (7)
In order to deviate a bit from my usual bird-madness, I decided to include two days on my Colombian itinerary spending time with a friend of mine who's a herpetologist. I love being out in the field with people who have a different speciality than me, as they experience the forest (or whatever other ecosystem we're in) through a completely different "filter", literally making me see through different eyes.
My friend is from the village of Supata, not far from Bogotá, which is famous for amphibians. My main target was actually a different species (which I'll upload soon), but to illustrate my ignorance of all things "herp", I had never even heard of this one, which has a distribution so restricted that it is named after that very village! It was discovered in 2007 and only formally named 2 years ago!
Anyway, we had a first successful night where we easily found the species I had come for. Then, the next day, after a nice morning birding and looking for Passifloras, my friend and a fellow student of hers suggested we go look for another frog that could be found nearby, mentioning a name I didn't catch. Of course, I said yes, since the point of my visit was mainly to look for amphibians! As we started the search, I finally understood that we were going to see a poison frog, but with no further details. Soon enough, my friends heard the calling frog (I never even would have recognized the calls as being made by a frog!) and began the search.
After a few minutes, they spotted one, and it still took me a couple of minutes to spot it through the incredibly lush undergrowth. The main reason: my mental search image was completely off, as the frog turned out to be about a third of the size that I expected to be, barely the size of my thumb's fingernail! But once my eyes adjusted, we were treated to an incredible show, with a male courting a female and another one seen carrying a tadpole on its back!
And of course, the fact that it's one of the most stunning frogs I've seen didn't hurt one bit :) Posted 2 years ago
Had no idea you had this up your sleeves, nice surprise! Posted 2 years ago
Definitely a highlight of the trip. At some point I'll need to go out with the Peruvian frog gurus :) Posted 2 years ago, modified 2 years ago