Colonia Alpina Treefrog

Fascinating facts about the Colonia Alpina Treefrog

• A female Fritziana goeldii measures 32 to 35 mm long; it has a slender body and a pointed snout.
• Fritziana goeldii inhabits forests from sea level up to about 1,000 m and can live wherever trees and epiphytic bromeliads are present.
• During breeding, a pair produces a clutch of just nine to about twenty eggs, which the male secures on a mucus-foam pad on the female’s back. After roughly nineteen days the mother moves the pad into a water-filled bromeliad leaf cup, where the embryos hatch. This precise timing and parental care illustrate an extraordinary on-the-go nursery system.
• Fritziana goeldii lives a few metres above ground, often in and around epiphytic bromeliads, using sticky discs on its fingers and toes.
• Habitat loss threatens local populations, but the International Union for Conservation of Nature lists Fritziana goeldii as “least concern” because it remains common across Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Espírito Santo.

At a glance

About the Colonia Alpina Treefrog

The Colonia Alpina treefrog, Fritziana goeldii, is a diminutive, slender amphibian that inhabits the mist-laden forests of southeastern Brazil. Females reach 32 to 35 mm in length, with males only slightly smaller, their bodies cloaked in pale grey or brown tones mottled by darker streaks. A pointed snout and disproportionately large eyes give the frog an alert expression, while adhesive discs at the tips of its fingers and toes allow it to cling effortlessly to the leaves and trunks of its arboreal world. Its preferred realm spans from sea level up to about 1,000 m, wherever trees host the epiphytic bromeliads that serve as both refuge and nursery. Life for Fritziana goeldii unfolds a few metres above the forest floor, centered on the water-filled tanks of bromeliads. During the protracted breeding ritual, the female secretes a mucus that the male whips into a frothy foam, coating her back with a sticky pad that cradles the fertilised clutch of nine to twenty eggs. After roughly nineteen days the female transfers the pad-bound embryos into a bromeliad’s liquid reservoir, where they hatch and, within days, metamorphose into tiny froglets, a rapid developmental sprint that underscores the species’ remarkable adaptation to a micro-habitat that many larger predators cannot exploit.

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