Abstract:
Perhaps the most well-studied aspect of anuran communication, vocalizations play an integral role in mate attraction (Littlejohn 1977; Gerhardt 1991; Tobias et al. 1998), demarcation of territory (Wagner 1989; Byrne 2009), and myriad other social interactions (Wells 1977; Wells and Schwartz 2007). Environmental factors such as temperature and humidity, as well as individual intrinsic factors such as size, are known to cause variations in call frequency and duration (Lingnau and Bastos 2007; De Toledo et al. 2009; Costa and Toledo 2013). However, the majority of variation is caused by changes in behavioral context. The genus Pristimantis (Craugastoridae) has undergone extensive taxonomic revision and contains ca. 530 currently recognized species (Hedges et al. 2008; Frost 2019). As with most members of this group, species of Pristimantis are highly cryptic, reclusive, and almost exclusively nocturnal (Lynch and Duellman 1997). For this reason, species data on calls and behavior are sparse (Duellman and Lehr 2009). Included within the Pristimantis myersi group (Hedges et al. 2008; Padial et al. 2014), Pristimantis (Eleutherodactylus) festae (Fig. 1) has received physical, distribution, and phylogenetic relationship descriptions (Lynch and Duellman 1980; Heinicke et al. 2007; Padial et al. 2014); however, vocalizations and period of activity have not been well documented. Pristimantis festae is a small, high-elevation anuran distributed in páramo and subpáramo Andean habitats, and primary and secondary forests in the Napo, Imbabura, and Tungurahua provinces of northern Ecuador at elevations between 2360 and 3650 m (Lynch and Duellman 1980; Yánez-Muñoz et al. 2014). Although listed by the IUCN as Endangered (Coloma et al. 2004), AmphibiaWebEcuador Red List has it marked as Least Concern with major threats being habitat destruction and degradation (Ron et al. 2011).