The call of Rhinella festae (Peracca, 1904) (Anura: Bufonidae) from Morona Santiago, Ecuador

ABSTRACT

We describe for the first time the call of Rhinella festae (Peracca, 1904), recording it in captivity inside a plastic bag. The call is composed of 1 to 2 multi-pulsed notes (2–5 pulses), has an average duration of 0.72 s, and a dominant frequency of 1.40 kHz. This species is characterized by the absence of vocal slits and sacs, so the emission of this call would be considered unusual and uncommon. In addition to the purpose of improving the knowledge of species suggested as mutes, we have also compiled information from other anuran species that emit sounds with the absence of these anatomical structures.

KEYWORDS:

• Acoustic communication
• vocal slits
• vocal sacs
• mute
• ex situ

Acknowledgments

We thank Cecilia Ortega (Ecotono) for the facilities provided during fieldwork. We are very grateful to Claudia Koch, who generously revised and provided suggestions on an early version of this manuscript. We thank three anonymous reviewers for their valuable and constructive comments that helped improve the manuscript. We thank Ministerio del Ambiente de Morona Santiago for research permit N°. 11–16–IC–FLO–FAU–B–DAPMS/MAE.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).