A Costa Rican tree frog with a metallic green sheen has now been recognized as a separate species, with researchers relying in part on an unusual underwater courtship sound.
The finding resolves an identification error that has lingered since the 1960s in Los Santos, one of the country's best-known coffee-growing regions.
What happened?
Working in the high-elevation streams of Los Santos, scientists determined that the animal is Isthmohyla nacientes, known locally as Rana de las Nacientes. Its range includes waterways in Dota, Tarrazú, and León Cortés, generally between about 1,400 and 2,000 meters above sea level.
As The Tico Times reported, the frog persists in both relatively natural habitats and terrain influenced by coffee cultivation. Researchers established it as a separate species using a combination of physical characteristics, genetic evidence, and vocal recordings.
Appearance alone had muddied the picture because the frog closely resembles the Green Spiny Tree Frog, Isthmohyla tica. What set it apart was its sound repertoire: researchers recorded a distinct high-pitched call and documented advertising, release, and courtship calls, including a courtship vocalization produced underwater.
After the frog was first spotted and assigned the wrong label, the confusion lasted for more than half a century. Wagner Chaves, a postdoctoral researcher with CONICET at the Bernardino Rivadavia Argentine Museum of Natural Sciences in Buenos Aires, said, "The results suggest that the diversity of this group of frogs in Costa Rica and Panama is greater than previously thought."
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Why does it matter?
In Los Santos, the frog shares its environment with water sources people depend on: the springs and headwaters where it lives also supply nearby communities with drinking water, in a region known for coffee production.
When streamside forests are cleared or waterways are polluted by pesticides and waste, both wildlife habitat and water quality can suffer.
Researchers say the frog faces those exact pressures, along with the loss of vegetation used for shelter and the shrinking of protected forests along rivers.
"We are convinced that this discovery is of great importance for the Los Santos region and could mark a turning point in civil society's awareness of the natural treasures found in this area," Juan G. Abarca, a researcher with the National Alliance for the Conservation of Amphibians and Reptiles, said, according to The Tico Times.
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Healthy waterways are not just habitat for wildlife; they are also part of the infrastructure people rely on every day.
What's being done?
Community involvement has already shaped the response. The frog's name was inspired in part by people from the San Lorenzo de Tarrazú community aqueduct, and local groups are now monitoring the species while developing conservation plans for its habitat, The Tico Times reported.
Protecting springs, rivers, and creekside vegetation can bring a double benefit: cleaner, more reliable water for people and safer breeding areas for a rare amphibian. In agricultural regions, even modest buffer zones along streams can help reduce runoff and limit habitat damage.
The broader research effort also included institutions from Costa Rica and abroad. As researchers refine where these frogs live and how many related species may exist, communities will have better information to guide conservation and land-use decisions.
As co-author Jonathan Navarro, a researcher at the National University's International Institute for Wildlife Conservation and Management, put it: "Its name also reminds us of the importance of protecting rivers and streams, as well as the forests that grow around them, so that water reaches people in good quality and quantity."
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