Colostethus
| Colostethus | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Colostethus fraterdanieli | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Amphibia |
| Order: | Anura |
| Family: | Dendrobatidae |
| Subfamily: | Colostethinae |
| Genus: |
Colostethus Cope, 1866 |
| Diversity | |
| 20 species (see text) | |
| Synonyms | |
|
Prostherapis Cope, 1868 |
|
Prostherapis Cope, 1868
Colostethus is a genus of poison dart frogs native to Central and South America, from Panama south to Colombia, Ecuador, and northern Peru. Their common name is rocket frogs, but this name may refer to frogs in other genera and families, following the taxonomic revision of the genus in 2006.
Colostethus was found to be "rampantly nonmonophyletic" in the taxonomic revision of poison dart frogs published in 2006. Before the revision, it had 138 species, but this was reduced to 18 species, after the former Colostethus were distributed among eight genera in two families, that is, in Dendrobatidae and in the newly established family Aromobatidae (e..g., Anomaloglossus). Within Dendrobatidae, many former Colostethus species were moved to Hyloxalus, while three were moved to the new Silverstoneia genus. Nevertheless, Colostethus is still considered paraphyletic because some Colostethus are more colosely related to Ameerega than to other Colostethus.
Dorsal colouration is cryptic, brown. A pale oblique lateral stripe is present (but may be broken or incomplete). Dorsal skin is granular posteriorly. In adult males, third finger is swollen.
There are currently 20 species in this genus:
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Wikipedia