Leptodactylus albilabris
Encyclopedia
Leptodactylus albilabris is a species of frog
Frog
Frogs are amphibians in the order Anura , formerly referred to as Salientia . Most frogs are characterized by a short body, webbed digits , protruding eyes and the absence of a tail...

 in the Leptodactylidae
Leptodactylidae
Leptodactylidae is a diverse family of frogs that probably diverged from other hyloids during the Cenozoic era, or possibly at the end of the Mesozoic. There are roughly 50 genera, one of which is Eleutherodactylus, the largest vertebrate genus, with over 700 species...

 family. Its local name is ranita de labio blanco or sapito de labio blanco ("white-lipped froglet").
It is found in Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...

, the British Virgin Islands
British Virgin Islands
The Virgin Islands, often called the British Virgin Islands , is a British overseas territory and overseas territory of the European Union, located in the Caribbean to the east of Puerto Rico. The islands make up part of the Virgin Islands archipelago, the remaining islands constituting the U.S...

, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Its natural habitat
Habitat
* Habitat , a place where a species lives and grows*Human habitat, a place where humans live, work or play** Space habitat, a space station intended as a permanent settlement...

s are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forest
Forest
A forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...

s, river
River
A river is a natural watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, a lake, a sea, or another river. In a few cases, a river simply flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water. Small rivers may also be called by several other names, including...

s, swamp
Swamp
A swamp is a wetland with some flooding of large areas of land by shallow bodies of water. A swamp generally has a large number of hammocks, or dry-land protrusions, covered by aquatic vegetation, or vegetation that tolerates periodical inundation. The two main types of swamp are "true" or swamp...

s, freshwater marsh
Marsh
In geography, a marsh, or morass, is a type of wetland that is subject to frequent or continuous flood. Typically the water is shallow and features grasses, rushes, reeds, typhas, sedges, other herbaceous plants, and moss....

es, plantation
Plantation
A plantation is a long artificially established forest, farm or estate, where crops are grown for sale, often in distant markets rather than for local on-site consumption...

s , rural gardens, heavily degraded former forest, and irrigated land.

Description

The White-lipped Frog is a terrestrial (living on the ground) smooth-bodied frog (not warty like a toad) which passes through a tadpole stage. The tadpoles are brown colored, reaching about 1.5 inches (13 millimeters) in length. L. albilabris can be recognized by its white upper lip (hence the name albilabris), web less fingers and toes, black streak between the eyes and the tip of the snout and between eye and shoulder. In general, adults grow to 1.4 inches (3.5 centimeters) in snout-vent length, but like other Puerto Rican frogs the body size increases with elevation and adults of a snout-vent length greater than 2.0 inches (5.0 centimeters) are not rare in the higher regions of the El Yunque National Forest. Individuals have a grayish brown background color with dorsal lines and bands of various shades of brown, cream, and reddish brown. It is white ventrally, and some males have many dark spots on the throat. Its voice is a "pink-pink-pink" sound usually heard from a muddy area.

Habits

This frog's diet includes insects, millipedes and land snails. It lays terrestrial eggs, but they are laid in a foam nest on the ground, usually under a rock or log. Eggs develop into tadpoles, which are washed away by the first rains and finish their development in temporary pools, or bodies of water with low or no water movement.
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