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Roberto
E. Bello Roy W. McDiarmid, Ph.D.
"Once again I wish to express my satisfaction with this program. The coverage, organization, and people involved have been superb.." |
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Roberto
E. Bello Roy W. McDiarmid, Ph.D.
"Once again I wish to express my satisfaction with this program. The coverage, organization, and people involved have been superb.." |
|
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Two new species of minute frogs (Adelophryne, Leptodactylidae) from the Guayana Highlands of southern Venezuela The
Guayana Highlands is an extraordinary region atop the Guiana Shield
of northern South America characterized by sandstone table mountains
ranging from 700m to cover 3000m. These flat-topped mountains,also
known as tepuis, appear as a lone (remote) archipelago in an immense
sea of lowland wet forests and savannas. Their mysterious appearance
and faraway location have sparked the imagination of explorers and
scientists for more than 100 years and led to many fascinating and
often incredible stories. Despite the interest and considerable exploration,
many of these tepuis remain obscure. Scientific knowledge of most
has scarcely progressed beyond the descriptive phase and for most
tepuis, systematic accounts of their diversity is fragmentary. Knowledge
of the distribution and diversity of the herpetofauna is no exception.
Fewer than half of the more than 70 species of amphibians known from
the Guayana Highlands have been described and many of those only in
the past 10 years. Because knowledge of the Guayana Highland herpetofauna
is so fragmentary (Hoogmoed 1979), it is difficult to determine levels
of endemism and the biogeographic and phylogenetic relationships of
many species (Myers, Williams and McDiarmid 1993). This research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates (Award: BIR-9300225). |