I had originally identified these frogs as the similar-looking Osteocephalus cabrerai, but my current understanding of the differences between the two species is that O. cabrerai has more fringing and more tubercles than these frogs do.

Here is a complete list of the herps I saw in the wild on my 2013 MT Amazon Expeditions trip.

Dick Bartlett helped me identify this as a female Osteocephalus buckleyi.

Here is a complete list of the herps I saw in the wild on my 2014 MT Amazon Expeditions trip.

This is certainly one of the most distinctive Osteocephalus species, and one that I'm always very happy to run across.

My Travelogues and Trip Lists page includes a complete list of the herps I saw in the wild on my 2016 MT Amazon Expeditions trip.

The busy dorsal pattern isn't very good camouflage against a plain green leaf, but you can easily imagine how well this frog would blend in against a mossy branch.

This bug-eyed beauty was perched on a tree trunk adjacent to a forest stream. I'm still not sure I know how to distinguish Osteocephalus buckleyi from Osteocephalus cabrerai, so take this ID with a grain of salt.

We called these frogs Osteocephalus buckleyi when we saw them, and maybe they are. But here are some words on the subject from Coloma & Duellman's comprehensive Amphibians of Ecuador (vol 2):

“Osteocephalus buckleyi is a species that is variable in coloration, structure, and/or genomics. Earlier records of Osteocephalus buckleyi from Venezuela are based on misidentifications (Barrio-Amorós et al., 2019). Studies in recent years in Ecuador and Peru have led to the descriptions of new species (O. germani from southern Peru and O. vilmae from Amazonian Ecuador) by Ron et al. (2012). These were placed in the synonymy of O. buckleyi by Jungfer et al. (2013) but recognized as distinct taxa by Chasiluisa et al. (2020). Currently, it is placed in the Osteocephalus buckleyi group sensu Jungfer et al. (2013).”

Got that?