First records of two rain frogs , genus Pristimantis ( Anura , Craugastoridae ) , for Colombia

Pristimantis yukpa and P. rivasi are two rain frogs recently described from Sierra de Perijá in Venezuela. Although these species have been expected to occur in the Colombian side of this mountain range, no evidence of their presence was available to date. Herein, I report for the first time the presence of these species for Serranía de Perijá in Colombia. Updated maps of their geographical distribution are shown.

The anuran fauna of this mountain range is one of the least studied of Colombia.Only two species of Pristimantis, P. cuentasi Lynch, 2003 andP. reclusus Lynch, 2003 have been described from the Colombian side of Perijá, in the Cesar department.Other three species, P. taeniatus Boulenger, 1912, P. gaigei Dunn, 1931, and P. viejas Lynch & Rueda-Almonacid, 1999, were reported for this mountain range by Moreno-Arias et al. (2009).However, the reliability of these records is questionable given the known distributional range of these species in Colombia (see Acosta Galvis and Cuentas 2016), and the fact that the authors did not provided voucher specimens or mention the herpetological collections where specimens were deposited.In addition, one species from adjacent Colombian Andes, P. anolirex Lynch 1983, and three species from the Venezuelan side of Perijá, P. yukpa Barrio-Amorós, Rojas-Runjaic & Infante, 2007, P. lassoalcalai Barrio-Amorós, Rojas-Runjaic & Barros, 2010, and P. rivasi Barrio-Amorós, Rojas-Runjaic & Barros, 2010, are expected to occur in the Colombian Perijá (Barrio-Amorós et al. 2007, 2010;Moreno-Arias and Medina-Rangel 2007), but there are no confirmed records available to date.
An expedition to the western slope of the Serranía de Perijá in La Guajira department (Colombia) between July and August of 2012 resulted in the finding of two unreported species of rain frogs for the country: P. yukpa and P. rivasi.All specimens were encountered when searching actively in all available microhabitats (e.g., rocks, shrubs and ground).Collection of specimens was authorized by the regional environmental authority of the Department of La Guajira (Corporación Autónoma Regional de La Guajira, Acuerdo 0021-2011).Specimens were identified by comparing them against the original descriptions of the species (Barrio-Amorós et al. 2007, 2010).Morphometric measurements were taken for all collected specimens (Table 1) using a digital caliper (± 0.01 mm), following Barrio-Amorós et al. (2007, 2010)

Pristimantis yukpa
Pristimantis rivasi Pristimantis yukpa is a small rain frog assigned to unistrigatus species group of Lynch and Duellman (1997), according to the original publication (Barrio-Amorós et al. 2007), but unassigned to species group by Padial et al. (2014).The species is known from six published (Barrio-Amorós et al. 2007; Figure 1) and five unpublished localities (IUCN SSC 2011) on the eastern slope of Perijá (Zulia state, Venezuela), at elevations between ca.500 and 1,200 m ( Barrio-Amorós et al. 2007;IUCN SSC 2011).The presence of this species in the western slope of the Perijá in Colombia was previously suggested but unconfirmed (Barrio-Amorós et al. 2007).This species is known to inhabit the understory of lowland and montane forests (including cloud, evergreen, and semideciduous dry forests), and patch forest surrounded by shrubs and plantations of cocoyam and coffee (Barrio-Amorós et al. 2007;IUCN SSC 2011).The specimen reported herein (UIS-A 5489; Figure 2) was collected on 28 July 2012 on the western slope of the Serranía de Perijá, Puerto Rico farm, Barriales-Nuevas Ideas vereda, El Molino municipality, La Guajira department, Colombia (10°35 29.1 N, 072°51 13.59 W, 850 m above sea level; Figure 1).The specimen is an adult male with vocal slits and distended vocal sac that was found calling at 22:30 h after a heavy rain, on the upper surface of a shrub at 0.9 m above ground, in a patch of evergreen lowland forest (Figure 3).The collected specimen fits entirely with the description of the species (Barrio-Amorós et al. 2007)   Pristimantis rivasi is a medium-sized frog member of the unistrigatus species group of Lynch and Duellman (1997), according to the original publication ill-defined W and inverted V-shaped marks, and venter white immaculate; (18) iris pale bronze with fine black reticulations.Morphometric characters are presented in the Table 1.This record extends the distributional range of the species to the western slope of the Serranía de Perijá in Colombia, ca.44.7 km west-southwest from  Meza-Joya | First records of Pristimantis frogs for Colombia (Barrio-Amorós et al. 2007), but unassigned to species group by Padial et al. (2014).The species is known from six sites in two clusters (Figure 4) on the eastern slope of the Serranía de Perijá (Zulia state, Venezuela), between 1,438-1,933 m above sea level (Barrio-Amorós et al. 2010).The species was also expected to occur throughout similar environments in the Perijá (see Barrio-Amorós et al. 2010), but no evidence of its presence was reported so far.This species occurs in the understory of premontane and montane forest, including dense primary, secondary, and patch of cloud forest, as well as coffee plantations (Barrio-Amorós et al. 2010;  Meza-Joya | First records of Pristimantis frogs for Colombia IUCN SSC 2012).The specimens of P. rivasi reported here (UIS-A 5485 -5488; Figure 5) were collected on 5 August 2012 on the western slope of the Serranía de Perijá, El Manantialito creek, Nuevas Ideas farm, Barriales-Nuevas Ideas vereda, El Molino municipality, La Guajira department, Colombia (10°35 15.66 N, 072° 49 07.12 W, 1,750 m elevation; Figure 4).All male specimens were found vocalizing actively between 19:30 and 22:00 h, on leaves and branches of bushes up to 3 m above ground.Specimens were found in a dry rocky creek surrounding for secondary cloud forest (Figure 6).The specimens reported here match the description of the species (Barrio-Amorós et al. 2010)  The new records confirm the presence of these species in the western slope of Serranía de Perijá and add to the richness of Pristimantis frogs on the Colombian side of Perijá, increasing the number of species from two to four (P.cuentasi, P. reclusus, P. yukpa, and P. rivasi).The number of Pristimantis species in Colombia is increased to 211.The recent discovery of new Pristimantis species from unexplored areas of Perijá (e.g., Lynch 2003;Barrio-Amorós et al. 2007, 2010), suggest that additional surveys are still needed to a better documentation of the anuran fauna in this mountain range.However, fieldwork in this region is difficult, mainly due to violence related with drug trafficking (Lynch 2003;Barrio-Amorós et al. 2007, 2010).The probable discovery of undescribed species of Pristimantis in Perijá is still pending.

Figure 4 .
Figure 4. Map showing the new locality record of Pristimantis rivasi in Colombia (black dot) and the previously known localities in Venezuela (numbered white dots; Barrio-Amorós et al. 2010).The first three sites are located at Cerro Las Antenas, Rosario de Perijá municipality, Zulia state, Venezuela.1. Creek behind the house of Cerro Las Antenas (1,449 m elevation), 2. Section of the path between the first and second antennas (1,670 m elevation, type locality), 3. Second antenna in the summit of the cerro (1,933 m elevation).The last three sites are located on the Río Tukuko basin, Machiques de Perijá municipality, Zulia State, Venezuela.4. Surroundings of the Yukpa village Pishikakao (1,603 m elevation), 5. Hill between Yurumuto and Pishikakao (1,640 m elevation), and 6.Surroundings of the Yukpa village Yurumuto (1,389 m elevation).The datum used for geographic coordinates is WGS84.

Table 1 .
This new locality record extends the distribution of Pristimantis rivasi to the western slope of the Serranía de Perijá in Colombia, ca.38 km northwest from the closest published record (summit of Cerro Las Antenas, Rosario de Perijá municipality, Zulia state, Venezuela).