Red-eyed Leaf Frog

Red-eyed Leaf Frog: Danta Corcovado Lodge, Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica — I posted a comparison post a while back now, featuring the different varieties of the Red-eyed Leaf Frog found we found at Selva Verde Lodge in the Sarapique River Valley in the Caribbean lowlands, and the Red-eyed Leaf Frogs we found at Danta Corcovado Lodge on the Osa Peninsula in the Pacific lowlands. There are 5 species of Leaf Frog found in Costa Rica, but there are apparently at least 5 distinct color variations of the Red-eyed Leaf Frog. The one you see almost exclusively in photos, with orange feet and bright blue flank bars, is the variety we found on the Caribbean slope. This one on the Osa Peninsula, with greeny-grey feet and almost black and white flank bars, is “variety A” (according to my field guide). I find it interesting that I could only find a single reference to the color variations in the Red-eyed Leaf Frog in a google search, and that was in a scientific paper on variations in defense peptides in the skins of the species. All of the more accessible internet sources, from Wikipedia to National Geographic, picture and describe only the orange-footed variety. I can be forgiven then, for thinking, for a moment there, that this might be a separate species. 🙂 Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with wildlife modifications and multi-frame noise reduction. Taken by the light of a flashlight. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. Equivalent ISO 5000 @ f4 @ 1/500th.

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