''Barygenys exsul'' is a species of

frog A frog is any member of a diverse and largely semiaquatic group of short-bodied, tailless amphibian vertebrates composing the order (biology), order Anura (coming from the Ancient Greek , literally 'without tail'). Frog species with rough ski ...

in the family

Microhylidae The Microhylidae, commonly known as narrow-mouthed frogs, are a geographically widespread family (biology), family of frogs. The 683 species are in 57 genera and 11 subfamilies. Evolution A molecular phylogenetic study by van der Meijden, et al. ...

. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

. It is known from Rossel ( type locality) and Sudest Islands in the

Louisiade Archipelago The Louisiade Archipelago is a string of ten larger volcanic islands frequently fringed by coral reefs, and 90 smaller coral islands in Papua New Guinea. It is located 200 km southeast of New Guinea, stretching over more than and spread o ...

, east of New Guinea. It is uncertain whether the specimens from Sudest really are conspecific with this species. '' Barygenys apodasta'' and ''

Barygenys resima ''Barygenys'' is a genus of Microhylidae, microhylid frogs. They are endemic to New Guinea and the adjacent Louisiade Archipelago. So far only known from Papua New Guinea, the range of the genus is expected to reach Papua (province), Papua provi ...

'' were mixed with this species prior to their

description Description is any type of communication that aims to make vivid a place, object, person, group, or other physical entity. It is one of four rhetorical modes (also known as ''modes of discourse''), along with exposition, argumentation, and narr ...

in 2013.

Description

Adult males measure and females in snout–vent length. The eyes are small. The tympanum is not evident or is indistinct. The fingers are short, unwebbed, and with rounded tips but lacking discs; the toes are unwebbed and have discs that are barely wider than width of penultimate phalanges. Coloration is dark brown or mud-brown, speckled with black or with obscure darker brown markings. Sometimes they can be uniform dark brown, or have a broad mud-brown vertebral stripe. Males call at night from beneath the surface of the soil. The call is a rapid series of 4–9 boops.

Habitat and conservation

Its natural

habitat In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species' habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ...

s are primary or secondary lowland rainforests and cloudforests, and have been found at altitudes up to

above sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of a location's vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) in reference to a vertical datum based on a historic mean sea level. In geodesy, it is formalized as orthometric height. The zero level ...

. It is a

fossorial A fossorial animal () is one that is adapted to digging and which lives primarily (but not solely) underground. Examples of fossorial vertebrates are Mole (animal), moles, badgers, naked mole-rats, meerkats, armadillos, wombats, and mole salamand ...

species that can be moderately common several centimeters beneath the soil surface. Development is presumably direct (i.e., there is no free-living larval stage). The species is not facing major threats. It is utilized on Tagula for magic purposes—to provide fertility to land if planted—but the level of utilization is likely too low to constitute a major threat.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q2698396 exsul Amphibians of Papua New Guinea Endemic amphibian species of Papua New Guinea Amphibians described in 1963 Taxa named by Richard G. Zweifel Taxonomy articles created by Polbot