Red-eyed Tree Frog

The red-eyed tree frog is one of the most recognisable frogs in the world. The body is bright green with blue and yellow stripes along the sides, a pale blue or cream belly, bright orange feet with suction pads, and large red eyes with vertical slit pupils. The skin is smooth, and it spends the day pressed under leaves, where the closed eyes hide the red. When startled it flashes the eyes, feet and flank stripes, which may startle a predator and give the frog time to escape. The bright colours do not signal toxicity (Wikipedia, general species account; AmphiBIO, Oliveira et al. 2017).

It is arboreal and nocturnal, and hunts insects at night. Males are smaller than females. The frogs mate and lay eggs near ponds, and the embryos can hatch early and drop into the water in response to an approaching predator. In Costa Rica and Panama the stripes on the flanks vary between blue, blue and red, orange and purple depending on the population (Wikipedia, general species account).

Tadpoles have suffered die-offs from ranavirus, and populations in Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panama are threatened by capture for the international pet trade (Wikipedia, general species account). On this guide it is a target species of La Selva, Arenal and the Osa Peninsula.