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Hula Painted Frog

Latonia nigriventer

Overview
Conservation Attention
Threats

About

The Critically Endangered Hula painted frog, of Israel, was believed extinct until its rediscovery in November 2011.

It was previously known from just two records; a collection in 1940 found two individuals and two tadpoles, and a second in 1955 found a single individual. All the individuals located in 2011 were within an area of 1.25 ha, with the majority of them being discovered in terrestrial habitat.

The Hula painted frog is the only species in its genus, and one of only 12 species in its entire family! This family of frogs, Alytidae, diverged from all other amphibians more than 150 million years ago, in the Jurassic Period. This is around the same time we last shared a common ancestor with kangaroos, koalas and wallabies!

Since its rediscovery several individuals have been found around a single pond, though fewer than 20 specimens have ever been found. The Huleh marshes were drained in the 1950s in an attempt to both eradicate malaria and to make the land suitable for agricultural use. However, the surviving patch of marshland was designated a nature reserve, and researchers now plan to determine whether this species occurs elsewhere in the Hula Valley.

Although the nature reserve is well-managed, it functions as a refuge for many water birds, and elevated predation pressure is thought to be major threat to the remaining amphibian populations. The Hula painted frog is protected by national legislation in Israel and there are plans to undertake a monitoring effort on this species.

Order: Anura
Family: Alytidae
Trend: decreasing
Size: 40mm

EDGE Score

EDGE Score: 6.43 (?)

ED Score: 36.94 (?)

GE / IUCN Red List (?)

Distribution

This species has been recorded on the eastern shore of Lake Huleh, Israel, and the northwest edge of the Hula swamps. It seems possible that it could once also be found in adjacent parts of the Syrian Arab Republic. It was recently found in the Hula Nature Reserve at 65 metres above sea level, which is less than 5 km away from its former sites.

Habitat and Ecology

The Hula Painted frog has only been found in the vicinity of a single pond in Israel and found terrestrially in detritus among reeds and blackberry up to 20cm deep. Its ecology is not well studied but it is known to be a larval-developing species – meaning tadpoles will emerge from the eggs.

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©Frank Glaw
frank.glaw@zsm.mwn.de
Please contact the photographer directly if you would like to use this picture.

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	67
Addressing threats	22
Status of knowledge	56
Management plan	33
Capacity building	44
Behaviour change	32
Awareness raising	33
Funding	33
Legislation	78
	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

28%

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).