We did not expect to find a thriving population of Ameerega macero in such a tiny plot of forest completely surrounded by destroyed habitat….
Henry, my wife, and I took a trip to the jungle of central Peru in search of… frogs. Of course, we were open to any other animals we could find as well. We went to a well known little town in the central jungle called Satipo.
We were absolutely amazed to find that there is ABSOLUTELY NO FOREST left around Satipo. We were determined to find something however. After talking with some locals, we found ourselves on a 1 hour combi ride and were told we would find forest at our destination….
We were not surprised to come up empty handed in this spot. We did not give up however and found ourselves on a trail that led through a large clearing. From the trail, we could see the river and forest to the other side.
We continued to trod our way through tall grass and mud to get to the rivers edge to find that there was no way to cross it.
I spotted a second patch of forest up river on our side of the water. Excited with finally finding forest, we made our way into it via a tiny trail. The trail led us beside a very small almost dry creek that only had pools of water left.
Not just an Ameerega, but an adult with a bunch of tadpoles on its back.
Henry came running as I dove to the ground to try to catch it! But.. too slow!.. It got away! Now we were all very pumped and searching hard to find more. Shortly after the first one, I found a second one…
This one wasn’t going to get away.. I dove through thorny vines to the ground and caught this one! It too had babies all over it´s back. What luck! We searched about an hour more to find several in the area. It seems like this isolated population of A. macero in this very small patch of forest is doing well for now.
I only hope they stay that way…
You can spend a lifetime here and not see everything! The local people here assumed that since we are “gringos” that we have a TON of money.. Well, I don’t have a ton of money and my friend is not a gringo. He is 100% Peruvian, born and raised.
It was almost funny as he got so offended at one lady that told him, “Son gringos y lloran por la plata”.. You see, she was trying to rip us off for 20 soles and my friend wasn’t having it!
HAHAHA!
This was pretty much how it was with all the people where silverstonei is found. They told us that lots of gringos go there to look for frogs and buy frogs. Hence why they have this mentality…
We found Ameerega rubriventris in abundance in second growth forest as well as the disturbed areas. They are far more common in disturbed areas than actual forest we found.
After more than our fair share of seeing rubriventris, we made our way down a trail into the mountains that took us into some of the most amazing tropical forest I have ever seen. Completely covered in moss with large adult trees, LARGE breeding plants for various species of frogs, begonias, orchids, EVERYTHING WAS THERE!
The adults are half the size of R. reticulatus and the newly metamorphosed froglets are 3 millimeters in length! I couldn’t believe it when I saw them! We are planning a trip back to this area. I promise to take more pictures and hopefully we will have luck finding silverstonei.
By Josh Richards
Photographs courtesy Josh Richards