A new Harlequin Toad from the Cordillera Oriental of the Colombian Andes (Bufonidae: Atelopus)

Both the Cordillera Central and Cordillera Oriental harbor much of Colombia’s Harlequin Toad (Atelopus) di­versity, with twelve species described from each of these mountain ranges. Most of them are poorly studied and several species are known from a few localities or a single locality only. No Harlequin Toads have been documented in about 200 km in the southern portion of the Cordillera Oriental. We examined historic material from Parque Nacional Natural Cue­va de los Guácharos, department of Huila, that has not been considered previously and cannot be assigned to any available name. Although only a single specimen is known, we here describe this Atelopus from the southern Cordillera Oriental as a species new to science, as it is readily distinguished from all congenerics by a combination of morphological characters (e.g., size, snout profile, webbing, supratympanic crests, skin texture and coloration). Our work provides yet another ex­ample of forensic taxonomy and underlines the need for further examination of the Harlequin Toads from the Andes of Colombia in an integrative taxonomic framework.