Giant Gladiator Treefrog - back, Uraba, Colombia

After navigating the Cotton-top Tamarin for only 2 or 3 hours, we made a retreat. It's an absolutely gorgeous forest but our pace was too slow due to the conditions. It would have taken us another 6 hours of uphill deep mud where each step sucks you in 20 inches, in order to reach grounds where some birding was possible.

A pity, I'd gladly spent weeks navigating this forest, but we only had one daytime block assigned to this park, so it was the right thing to try to find a more productive use of our day. Retreating back to the park ranger's hut, we found this absolutely huge treefrog there.

It's known as the Rusty Frog, but I prefer the cooler Giant Gladiator Treefrog name. Even to our local guide Carlos, an absolute herping fanatic, it was the first time he saw it in his life. Indeed, the range within Colombia is described as only occurring in the Amazon and Colombian lowlands, so it's not expected here.

Our very own herping specialist John Sullivan has some more info on the species on this website:
http://www.wildherps.com/species/H.boans.html