Home > Species > Amphibians > Bullock’s Mountains False Toad

Bullock’s Mountains False Toad

Telmatobufo bullocki

Overview
Conservation Attention
Threats

About

Bullock’s false toad is a rare and elusive species, usually found under logs in temperate beech woodland.

Extensive fieldwork by several herpetologists within the range of this species between 1992 and 2002 has turned up only a single adult (in 2002). A second individual was recently seen in early 2011. The stomach contents of the first individual described by scientists were examined and found to comprise the remains of cockroaches, other insects and spiders, as well as a considerable mass of plant material. The major threat to the species is clear cutting and afforestation (converting land not previously forested) with pine plantations, which causes siltation of streams (which, in turn, makes it harder for the larvae to feed). Bullock’s false toad occurs in the Parque Nacional Nahuelbuta, although there are no specific conservation measures ongoing for this species

Order: Anura
Family: Calyptocephalellidae
Population: Extremely rare
Trend: unknown
Size: 60-80mm

EDGE Score

EDGE Score: 6.36 (?)

ED Score: 35.02 (?)

GE / IUCN Red List (?)

Distribution

This species is endemic to Chile, found only in a few locations in the Nahuelbuta coastal range in the Arauco Province. It has an altitudinal range of 800-1,200 metres above sea level.

Habitat and Ecology

The Bullock’s false toad lives near fast-flowing streams that flow through temperate southern beech forest. Adults are found hiding under logs and they are known to breed in fast-flowing streams. The tadpoles are free swimming and feed by scraping algae from submerged rocks. The adults eat insects and also plant material, suggesting the frog has terrestrial feeding habits.

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©Claudio Soto Azat
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©José Castro (courtesy of Helen Díaz Páez)/Jefe de Carrera Pedagogia en Ciencias Naturales y Biologia, Campus Los Angeles, Universidad de Concepcion
hediaz@udec.cl
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Conservation Actions

For each key category of conservation action, we calculated a conservation attention score based on expert information. In this graph, a higher score means the action is being carried out more intensively over more of the species range. The colour shows how important each action is considered to be for the conservation of this species.

Engaging stakeholders	48
Addressing threats	48
Status of knowledge	48
Management plan	7
Capacity building	44
Behaviour change	22
Awareness raising	7
Funding	7
Legislation	30
	0 20 40 60 80 100
	Score: 100 means the activity occurs at high level across more than 75% of the species range
	Priority: High Medium Low Very Low

Overall Conservation Attention

We combined all of the expert information on conservation actions to calculate an overall conservation attention score for this species. Please help us to reach our goal of establishing dedicated conservation attention at “High” levels for all EDGE species.

Very Low Low Medium High

21%

More information

Recent studies have grouped all possible conservation activities for any species into nine key categories (Washington et. al 2015). For each action, we asked experts for each species to assess the extent to which that action is being carried out and how much of the species’ range that action occurs in. For each action we used these two pieces of information to calculate the conservation attention score per action. A score of 100 means that the action is being carried out to a high level across at least 75% of the species range. We then combined the scores for all actions into an overall conservation attention score for the species. The experts also judged how important each category was to the conservation of that particular species.

This wordcloud illustrates the threats facing this species. The size of each word indicates the extent of a species range that is affected by that threat (larger size means a greater area is affected). The colour of the word indicates how much that threat impacts the species (darker shades of red mean the threat is more severe).