Cochranella granulosa, (Taylor, 1949) (Taylor, 1949)

Barrio-Amorós, César L., Forero-Cano, Andrés Mauricio, Serna, Felipe Reyes, Nieto, Raúl & Rombeaut, Corentin, 2022, Extension of the distribution of Cochranella granulosa (Taylor, 1949) in Colombia and Ecuador, Anartia (Oxford, England) 35, pp. 33-38 : 34-35

DISTRIBUTION

We report Cochranella granulosa as present from Honduras to NW Ecuador in a patchy distribution ( Fig. 3). In Honduras it is present in the SE ( Departments Olancho and Gracias a Dios) in an isolated patch contiguous to Nicaragua at Jinotega and Matagalpa ( McCranie & Wilson 2002, Köhler 2011, HerpetoNica 2015, Fig. 4A, B), where it disappears almost entirely with some recent sightings at Chontales ( Sunyer et al. 2014). In Costa Rica, this species is widely distributed across the country, except in the highlands (above 1,500 m) and the dry forest of Guanacaste ( Savage 2002), present at both versants, the Atlantic ( Fig. 4C) and the Pacific ( Fig. 4D). In Panama, it is also well distributed along the country except on the highlands above 1,500 m and the arid Península de Azuero ( Köhler 2011) ( Fig. 4E, F). In Colombia (Díaz-Ricaurte & Guevara-Molina 2020), including our three new reports of this note, there are only four localities in total, three adjacent to the Panamanian border, and one in the central Chocoan rainforest at Nuquí . From there to the closest reported locality in Ecuador there are 553 km without any reports so far. In Ecuador, the three localities lie in the remnant Chocoan rainforest in the NW of the country ( Culebras et al. 2020, Guayasamín et al. 2020, this work). PHENOTYPES

At first glance, the coloration and pattern of the Central American and Colombian populations diverge from the two only photographed animals from Ecuador, MZU- TI 4811 (Museo de Zoología, Universidad Tecnológica Indoamérica, Quito, Ecuador; Culebras et al. 2020) and the one reported herein (UTADC 9742; Fig. 1B, 2). Animals from Honduras to the Colombian Chocó look very similar in pattern and size, being small to medium, males 22.5-29 mm, females 29-32 mm. Dorsal surfaces are dark to pale green, and some individuals may have a bluish tonality on the posterior half of the body, including the hind limbs ( Fig. 5A). The granules that cover the total surface of the body bear pale blue ( Fig. 4A, B) to pale yellow ( Fig. 4E) chromatophores; many or few dark blue dorsal spots are often present, although in some populations these can be randomly absent, both on males and females ( Fig. 4D, 5B). Color of the disk fingers and toes can be bluish green to yellow, while irises can be gray, brown, orange or yellow.

On the other hand, a single Ecuadorian female of Cochranella granulosa was bigger than any other female seen so far in Costa Rica or Panama, measuring 35 mm. The range size reported by Savage (2002) and Leenders (2016) for Costa Rica is smaller, with females reaching up to 32 mm. Both male (MZUTI-4811) and female (UTADC 9742) are lime green without any trace of blue, lacking any dorsal spotting, bearing yellowish granules, yellow iris and much wider disks than Central American and Colombian populations. Despite the very limited sample studied, at first glance, the foot webbing is more extensive in the Ecuadorian individuals ( Fig. 2 bottom right, Guayasamín et al. 2020: fig 67 bottom right).