Bioacoustics of Phyllomedusa neildi

Vocalization: Three types of notes can be recognized. In the audiospectrogram ( Fig 7 ), each call corresponds to a different individual, but all were recorded at the same time (21:30h) from a single position (air temperature 22°C). The first ( Fig 7 A) consist of a single note of 104 ms of length and 707 Hz of dominant frequency (fundamental frequency of 168 Hz). The second ( Fig 7 B) is a series of eight notes of 871 ms, with a dominant frequency of 736 Hz (fundamental 140 Hz). The third ( Fig 7 C) was the most common (that night) and consists of two notes, one principal with a duration of 164 ms and a dominant frequency of 843 Hz, (fundamental 252 Hz), and a secondary of 104 ms. The length of the complete sequence is 302 ms. Rivero & Esteves (1969) showed an audioespectrogram of the call of Phyllomedusa trinitatis , but they did not described it. In their spectrogram, there is a principal note, followed by five secondary notes; as can be extrapolated, the dominant frequency is approximately at 800 Hz, while the fundamental is at 500 Hz; the duration of the sequence is of 1.1 sec. Phyllomedusa neildi can emit up to fifteen consecutive secondary notes. Kenny (1966) described a distress call for P. trinitatis that was not heard in P. n e i l d i. Calls of the Phyllomedusa tarsius group species have been never well analyzed. We cannot conclude any important difference among them. The call of P. c a m b a (out of the P. t a r s i u s group in this paper) has also a dominant frequency of 860 Hz.

Distribution and habitat: In addition to the type locality, one specimen assigned to Phyllomedusa neildi (MHNLS 1503) comes from Curimagua, distrito Petit, in the Sierra de San Luis. Thus, P. n e i l d i is known definitely only from xeric localities on a spur of the Sierra de San Luis, at an elevation of 550 m . The dominant vegetation consists of low trees (to 8 m ) called locally “cujíes”, spiny bushes, and cacti, composing a dry semi­deciduous dwarf forest (bosque muy seco tropical "bms­T" of Holdridge 1967 ). This species may be endemic to the low, dry lands of the Sierra de San Luis and vicinity, but it also could be more widespread through similar habitats in northwestern Venezuela in the states of Falcón, Lara, Yaracuy and Zulia. Previously, all known species of what is going to be the Phyllomedusa tarsius group (defined below) were reported to occur from lowland rainforest to cloud forest (bmh­T to bmh­P of Holdridge 1967 ), which are the habitats of P. t a r s i u s and P. trinitatis in Venezuela , although the latter can be also found in deciduous forest (bs­P). Phyllomedusa venusta is known from rainforest in Darién, Panamá ( Duellman and Trueb, 1967 ) and northern Colombia to the middle Magdalena Valley, although it inhabits also some localities with a drier climate in Atlántico and Luriza (John D. Lynch, pers. com.). Phyllomedusa coelestis occurs in rainforests in the upper Amazon in Peru and Ecuador . Natural History: At the type locality, on 22 August 2001 , several egg clutches were observed. These were like those described by Kenny (1966) for Phyllomedusa trinitatis in Trinidad . One clutch was encased on the upper surface of a single leaf, about 12 cm wide. Other nests were encased in two or more leaves. Two nests contained 255 and 282 white eggs, surrounded by transparent jelly capsules. Adult males called from bushes at heights of 1.5 m to trees to> 4 m , around ponds. Amplectant pairs were observed in vegetation at various heights above water, but never in the water, as Langone et al. (1985) observed for P. i h e r i n g i . The same night, while in some lagoons many adults were in reproductive activity, in other pools only a few males were calling sporadically. Other species of anurans typical of savannas and xeric habitats of northern South America that were found in the pond where P. neildi was breeding include Chaunus marinus , C. granulosus complex, Dendropsophus microcephalus , D. minutus , Hypsiboas crepitans , Scinax “xsignatus”, Engystomops pustulosus, Pleurodema brachyops, and Leptodactylus insularum .