Clip of the week

This week’s clip shows a brightly coloured leaf frog (Agalychnis hulli) blinking its eyes and turning around on a leaf. It was filmed in Orellana Province, Ecuador, by Morley Read. This colourful and photogenic frog is threatened by habitat loss, and it occurs only in Peru and Ecuador. 

Morley commented:

“I encountered a chorus of Agalychnis hulli beside a rainforest pool while conducting a survey of reptiles and amphibians along a road cut by an oil company through the pristine rainforest of Yasuni National Park. This is a rare species known from a few sites in the Ecuadorian and Peruvian Amazon. After a search of the pool and making sound recordings of frog calls, we took selected individuals back to the lab where they were photographed and had the opportunity to shoot this video clip. Afterwards the animals were released at the same site.

Ecuador has the highest amphibian biodiversity per unit area in the world, but many species are poorly known. In documenting the herpetofauna with a standardised set of photos on white background, audio recording of the call and in video, at least we will have a record  before many of these species inevitably become extinct.”