The cute little ugly one: Engystomops pustulosus

I end my Venezuelan frog posts with one of the more interesting species: Engystomops pustulosus, the Tungara Frog. This is another Leptodactylid, related to the Leptodactylus and Pleurodema I've already covered. Engystomops is a small little frog that is quiet abundant and very vocal every night on the ranch. It produces a weird two-part call that sounds very much like two different frog species calling at the same time - check it out in my frog call video.


I was surprised to discovered very similar photos of this species in an animal communication textbook. It turns out this is a fairly well-studied neotropical frog (mostly under its former genus Physalaemus), with papers on its odd call and sexual selection, and its foam-nesting habits.

A pair in amplexus