The distress call of a Masked Treefrog, <i>Smilisca phaeota</i> (Cope 1862) (Hylidae)

A dvertisement calls are the most frequently studied type of anuran vocalizations; these are most frequently emitted by males to attract potential mates and convey territorial information to conspecifics (Toledo et al. 2015;Khler et al. 2017).In contrast, distress calls are rarely reported sound emissions used for defensive purposes (Mendoza-Henao 2021, 2024), which typically are accompanied by stereotypical behaviors (e.g., open mouths and hissing noises or screams; see Toledo et al. 2015; Khler et al. 2017).Distress calls differ from aggressive calls because aggressive calls include an intraspecific behavioral context (Khler et al. 2017).I herein describe the distress call of a Masked Treefrog, Smilisca phaeota (Hylidae), in the Pacific region of Colombia.The Masked Treefrog is a medium-sized frog (SVL = 40-78 mm) commonly found in humid and dry tropical forests from Honduras to Panama in Central America and Colombia and Ecuador in South America (Cochran and Goin 1970; Duellman 1970).The recording of the distress call was made during a series of academic activities with students at 2200 h on 20 October 2023, in a secondary forest in the Jardn Botnico del Pacfico, Mecana, Baha Solano, Choc, on the Pacific Coast of Colombia (6.270635, -77.381440; elev.15 m asl).The frog was perched on a palm tree ca.150 cm above the ground.During handling, the individual inflated its body and emitted a long, high-pitched sound, a video of which was recorded by Diego Esquivel with a Nikon p900 camera (video available at FigShare: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.26815285and YouTube: https://youtu.be/HJl0TtIpoYQ).The original audio in MPEG-4 format (.mov) was converted to WAVE (.wav) format and stored in the Banco de Sonidos OcainaCua (BSOC) at the Museo de Ciencias Naturales de La Salle (BSOC100).Air temperature and the size of the frog were not recorded.Using the WAVE-converted recording, I extracted and analyzed call duration, spectral