Anotheca spinosa

Description
The size of the male is about 68 mm, the female typically measures about 80 mm. This frog has an unmistakable head with pointed spines and a large tympanum. Young people lack projections. Males do not have vocal clefts (Jungfer 1996). The color is dark brown above with a black veined and flanks bordered by white. The larvae are white at hatching (Jungfer 1996), and later become dark brown at the top and bluish gray at the bottom as they mature (Savage 2002).
It lives in cloud forests and is active all year round and is difficult to find. It is an arboreal species, found in bromeliads and banana plants. The calls of the males come from water-filled cavities, such as tree holes, open bamboo internodes or bromelia leaf armpits. The call is a strong "boop-boop-boop" and can be heard up to 100 m away.
Its distribution by country includes Costa Rica, Honduras, Mexico and Panama. Southeastern Mexico (disjoint populations on the Atlantic slopes of the Sierra de los Tuxtlas, Oaxaca State and Veracruz State, 800-2,068 meters over sea level); eastern Honduras (95 meters over sea level ); Costa Rica and western Panama (350-1,330 meters over sea level).
Tadpoles have been found in bromeliads on felled trees, in hollows of trees full of water and in bamboo internodes in a botanical garden forest. Larvae can breathe atmospheric oxygen after hatching.
The species is seldom seen, but is often heard in a suitable habitat in Costa Rica. In Mexico it is reported as rare, where it appears to have been extirpated from some places. Only two specimens are known in Honduras; has protected status in two Honduran reserves, the El Ocote Biosphere Reserve, La Amistad International Park and the Tawahka Asagni Biosphere Reserve. The state of Panama is unknown. A captive breeding program is underway at the El Valle Amphibian Conservation Center in Panama.
The main threats to this species appear to be habitat loss and degradation, resulting from small-scale agriculture and subsistence wood harvesting. In any case, the possible reasons for the decline of amphibians are already well known: alteration and general loss of habitat, modification of the habitat of deforestation, or activities related to logging, intensified agriculture or grazing.

http://amphibiaweb.org/cgi/amphib_query?where-genus=Anotheca&where;-species=spinosa

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