FROGS OF COLOMBIA — COCHRAN AND GOIN 241 



heels overlap greatly. No patagium. Skin of upper parts smooth; a 

 rather narrow glandular ridge encircling upper part of tympanum; 

 skin of throat and chest very finely granular, that of belly and lower 

 surface of thigh uniformly and not so finely granular; a well-developed 

 skinfold across chest; adult male, vocal sac subgular. Skin of head not 

 co-ossified with skull, roof of skull not exostosed. 



Dimensions. — Head and body, 32.5 mm.; head length, 12 mm.; 

 head width, 11 mm.; femur, 13.6 mm.; tibia, 16.9 mm.; heel-to-toe, 

 23.7 mm.; hand, 10.2 mm. 



Color in alcohol. — A rather brownish frog with indistinct dorsolateral 

 stripes. On the moderate brown dorsal background indistinct darker 

 brown markings occur as follows: a narrow line along each canthus 

 from naris to eye; an inverted triangular-shaped interocular bar; a 

 line from the posterior corner of the eye that passes above the tym- 

 panum, thence downward toward the shoulder where it terminates; 

 a line from the hind margin of the upper lid that passes straight back 

 to the region of the sacral hump. The area on each side between the 

 dark lines that terminate above the shoulder and those that pass on 

 back to the sacral hump is somewhat lighter than the rest of the 

 dorsum and appears to form an indistinct dorsolateral light stripe. 

 Each groin and the anterior face of each thigh is marked with distinct 

 black flecks and the posterior surface of each thigh with distinct, 

 somewhat vermiculate areas of light that are outlined with dark 

 brown and which form the thigh pattern so characteristic of this 

 species. There are a few faint fleckings on the chin and throat, the 

 rest of the ventral surface is a dirty gray. 



Remarks. — Dunn told us many years ago that when he first started 

 studying the lizards in the Institute deCienciasNaturales, in Bogota, he 

 would take a bottle of one species off the shelf and find that it had been 

 described six times and then find that the next six species had not 

 been described at all. While of course the number of times mentioned 

 by Dr. Dunn in his story is fictitious, the implied situation is not, for 

 we find common, widespread species of South American amphibians 

 and reptiles described time and time again. In the case of the present 

 species, as we now understand it, we find that a new name has been 

 proposed for it (or a part of it) no less than 14 times. By placing all of 

 these names in the synonymy, as we have done above, we do not 

 mean to imply that rubra is not a variable species with perhaps a 

 number of geographic races worthy of recognition. However, until a 

 really thorough study is made of the variations, both geographic and 

 individual, in this species, it seems to us rather futile to attempt to 

 apply names to each of the populations. From our experience, we can 

 state that the specimens from Leticia have a different tooth count 

 from those of Trinidad (Goin, 1958) and that each of the populations 



