Pristimantis ridens
Silhouette: Dmitry Bogdanov (vectorized by T. Michael Keesey) · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~60% in a week ~90%
Pristimantis ridens, also known as the pygmy rain frog and the Rio San Juan robber frog, is a species of frog in the family Strabomantidae. It is found in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama and western Colombia. The first description of the species was published in 1866 by Edward Drinker Cope, who placed it in the genus Phyllobates. The holotype was collected by Robert Kennicott, with the type locality being the San Juan River of Nicaragua. The holotype was deposited into the collection of the United States National Museum, but has since been lost. In 1885, Cope erected the genus Hypodictyon and moved ridens to it.
In 1888, George Albert Boulenger moved the species to Syrrhophus; a genus erected by Cope in 1878 that was later deemed to be synonymous with Eleutherodactylus by George S. Myers in 1962, which was ignored by other writers until 1989, when Stephen Blair Hedges published a paper coming to the same conclusion and treating Syrrhophus as a subgenus of Eleutherodactylus.
By the time that synonymy was established, Edward Harrison Taylor had already moved the species to Eleutherodactylus, doing so in 1952; however, due to a different synonymy, the first placement of the... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tenorio Volcano National Park | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | |
| 2 | Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | |
| 3 | Braulio Carrillo National Park | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | |
| 4 | Arenal Volcano National Park | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica | |
| 5 | Chirripó National Park | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica |
| # | Zoo / Centre | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | International Animal Rescue – Costa Rica | 🇨🇷 Costa Rica |
Possible
About 30% of wildlife watchers report a Pygmy Rain Frog sighting in Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve on a given day, based on 108 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 3rd most-seen of the 19 amphibians we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 60%, and over a week to about 90%, if each day is a fresh chance.
January
In that month about 40% of wildlife watchers report a Pygmy Rain Frog in Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve on a given day, against under 5% in August, the lowest month. That is one of Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve's driest months, with about 95 mm of rain against 510 mm in October.
Between 6 and 9 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Pygmy Rain Frog sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 pm and 6 am: it is mostly seen at night.
Among the best
Of the 5 parks where we can rate Pygmy Rain Frog sightings, Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve ranks 2nd at about 30%, level with the leaders once rounded. The best odds are in Tenorio Volcano National Park (Costa Rica, about 30%).
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Pygmy Rain Frog is recorded against all the amphibians logged in Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve (108 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
