Hypsiboas boans (Linnaeus 1758)

Barrio-Amorós, César L. & Brewer-Carías, Charles, 2010, Venezuelan Guayana, with the description of five new species, Zootaxa 1942, pp. 1-68 : 33

Hypsiboas boans (Linnaeus 1758)

Gladiator tree frog, Rana arbórea común, Kï-tó

Camp V. 7 March 2002. EBRG 4657 (adult male) .

Hypsiboas boans is common in the lowlands and uplands of the Guayana Shield. Males were calling from bushes and trees near the Río Canaracuni and in its tributaries on 7 March 2002. They ceased calling during a week of rains, but recommenced calling immediately after the rains ceased. In a creek near Canaracuni, we saw a surface film egg mass in the water close to a rocky shore. Only H. boans and Chaunus marinus were calling and breeding at that time. We observed no typical excavated nests of H. boans , but we suspect that the egg mass belonged to that species ( Caldwell 1992). Gorzula (in Duellman 1997) stated that H. boans in the Gran Sabana uplands does not make nests. However, the Sarisariñama population lives at an altitude of 400 m and 200 km west of the Gran Sabana, in a tributary of the Caura River, which is a typical lowland region. Hypsiboas boans is a facultative nest-builder in some places (e.g., Santa Cecilia, Ecuador; Duellman 1978), as are H. crepitans ( Caldwell 1992) and H. pugnax ( Chacón 2001) in Venezuela. The senior author also observed clutches of H. boans in Parque Nacional Manu, Peru (Barrio-Amorós and Chaparro 2004), and at Sierra de Lema (Barrio-Amorós and Duellman, in press) with no nests associated. Hypsiboas boans is an important protein source in dry season for the Ye’kwana people. We do not know the details of its preparation.