Loss of tropical forests is a major cause of biodiversity loss worldwide. Although drastic modification of the habitat has been shown to negatively affect amphibians, we are far from a complete understanding of the response of amphibian communities to deforestation. We studied frog assemblages in a gradient of forest modification in a humid area of Costa Rica, where the primary forest has been ...

The coqui frog (Eleutherodactylus coqui) is native to Puerto Rico and was accidentally introduced to the State of Hawai‘i through contaminated nursery products from the Caribbean. Since its introduction in the late 1980s, coqui have become widely dispersed and in some areas population densities have reached 55,000 frogs/ha. The coqui frog is a species of concern because individual frogs can pro...

The treefrog Eleutherodactylus coqui is a direct developer--it has no tadpole stage. The limb buds develop earlier than in metamorphosing species (indirect developers, such as Xenopus laevis). Previous molecular studies suggest that at least some mechanisms of limb development in E. coqui are similar to those of other vertebrates and we wished to see how limb morphogenesis in this species compa...

Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), a disease-causing amphibian-specific fungus, is widely distributed in Puerto Rico, but is restricted to elevations above 600 m. The effect of this pathogen in the wild was studied by monitoring Eleutherodactylus coqui and E. portoricensis in 2 upland forests at El Yunque, a site characterized by historic population declines in the presence of chytridiomycosi...

The rove beetle Triacrus dilatus is found in the Atlantic forest of South America and lives in the refuse piles of the paper wasp Agelaia vicina. Adults of T. dilatus are among the largest rove beetles, frequently measuring over 3 cm, and exhibit remarkable variation in body size. To examine sexual dimorphism and allometric relationships we measured the length of the left mandible, ocular dista...

Three new species of genus Chlaenius Bonelli subgenus Lithochlaenius Kryzhanovskij are described from China: Chlaenius chuanqianensis Liu & Liang, sp. n. (type locality: Xishui, Guizhou Province), Chlaenius linwensini Liu & Liang, sp. n. (type locality: Fujian Province), and Chlaenius propeagilis Liu & Kavanaugh, sp. n. (type locality: Gaoligongshan, Yunnan Province). Seven species of the subge...