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Atelopus carbonerensis Rivero, 1974: A long-awaited rediscovery through Citizen Science

2023; University of Kansas; Volume: 30; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.17161/randa.v30i1.18534

2332-4961

Cesar Luis Barrio Amorós, D.Pascual Torres,

Bat Biology and Ecology Studies

in Venezuela, described a new subspecies of Atelopus oxyrhynchus as A. o. carbonerensis, from the region around La Carbonera, Mérida State, in the Venezuelan Andes (Rivero 1974); it was later elevated to species level by La Marca (1983).The bright yellow coloration of A. carbonerensis is conspicuous among Andean amphibians, probably serving as a warning color due to the presence of tetrodotoxin in the skin (Mebs and Schmidt 1989).The exceptional longevity in the wild (La Marca 1984) is likely facilitated by this antipredatory mechanism.Various researchers (Rivero 1974;Dole and Durant 1974;Durant and Dole 1974;La Marca 1983) described the extraordinary abundance of the species, suggesting that at least a hundred animals could be collected in a short period of time and uncountable numbers were road-killed in the past.Durant and Dole (1974) marked and released 750 individuals in 2,500 m² at the San Eusebio Forest (close to La Carbonera).According to La Marca and Lötters (1997) A. carbonerensis is the most represented species in Venezuelan herpetological collections, with more than 400 specimens known.These authors also provided information on when they last noticed survival of the species, i.e., in January 1995 near the type locality.But the very last sighting of the species was reported by Torres and Barrio-Amorós ( 2001) of an animal photographed by Carlos Gaviria on 13 August 1998 at the surroundings of Páramo El Tambor (8.683,.Since then, no more reports of the species have been made.La Marca and Reinthaler (1991), Barrio-Amorós (2003) and Lampo et al. (2006) provided well-established reasons for the decline of such species.The known range of this species is restricted and includes the surroundings of the type locality, La Carbonera, San Eusebio, and páramo El Tambor, from 2,000 to 2,800 m asl (Barrio-Amorós 2004; La Marca 2022) (Fig. 1).Atelopus carbonerensis is currently listed as Critically Endangered by the IUCN Red List (La Marca 2022) and several authors have recently indi-cated that the species may be extinct (Barrio-Amorós et al. 2019;Lötters et al. 2019).From 2000 to 2010, Fundación AndígenA, a Méridabased NGO (https://www.andigena.org/proyectos/atelopus/),developed its Proyecto Atelopus, with one of its major objectives being the search for lost species of Atelopus in the central Cordillera de Mérida.Its main interest was Atelopus carbonerensis, and a vigorous campaign was carried out in the area of its distribution range, from La Carbonera to La Azulita (Barrio-Amorós 2005).In 2004, a workshop for academics, national park rangers, and the general public was held at the INPARQUES-Instituto Nacional de Parques Nacionalesheadquarters, and a poster funded by donors was presented for free throughout the area (at schools, local stores, public buildings, etc.) (Fig. 2; Barrio-Amorós 2005).