Pristimantis canari

It was not enough sleep for me and an early send off to FCT and the park guards leaves me a sleepy head all day, but they made us motepio for breakfast. Homemade and delicious. After breakfast we processed those frogs we collected to identify from the night before. Wide eyed, clammy skinned jewels under our magnifying lens.

Follow the river now, up the Tamimanga. We´re looking for an extremely rare frog discovered only recently and described by Alejandro on his last trip here. The rarest of the rare hiding amid the muddy overhangs and rocks of a small stream. No luck this time but the day cannot be beat. Warm afternoon sunshine dappling the boughs of the trees by the tune of a soft warm breeze dancing to babble of the Tamimanga below. It was so much like a summer day I wanted to go swimming, but instead snoozed in the tall grass of the pasture before dinner storing up energy for the night ahead.

Rana-rama, as I call it, begins as night falls. As we retraced our steps along the Tamimanga we found many of the same species from the night before. Bug eyed, splay toed, clinging to leaves, chorusing from twigs, and hiding in mossy nooks. Drop down now by machete cut bamboo trail to the river rushing cold from the highland cloud drop. It is chilly along the river, wet and mysterious as a crocodile by shadow light, or headlamp. That´s where I caught this shot. This is Pristimantis canari, another rarity and endemic here. Found nowhere else outside of this one province in Ecuador. Isn´t that cool!

Biodiversity in relief.