This little rainforest jewel was jumping about like a crazed grasshopper on the forest trail. Fortunately it didn't make a concerted effort to leave or hide; it would just not sit still for my camera. I stayed with it for ten minutes or so before it finally calmed down enough to pose for a few photos on the forest floor like this one. Since our group hadn't yet seen any of this beautiful species, I brought it back to the field station for others to photograph, and then returned it to its original hopping ground the next day.

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

I spotted a gaudy little poison frog hopping about on a large understory frond. For a moment it was posed perfectly for a photo, but before I could set up my shot it had hopped to this partially obscured position. I got a couple of photos from this angle, and then tried to encourage it to hop back into the open. Instead it hopped down into the leaf litter and quickly disappeared. I wasn't sure which species I had seen, because I didn't get a good look at the colors of the tiny frog. When I looked at my photos later I realized that I hadn't seen the colors on the back very well because they had been covered up by tadpoles! That made me glad that the frog had escaped me so easily.

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

I noticed the movement of this little jewel as it hop-climbed up the trunk of a rainforest tree. I spent the next twenty minutes following it around its stomping grounds with my camera, trying to sneak in a photo whenever the frog stopped for more than a few seconds, which was not often.

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.

While unsuccessfully searching for more Atelopus spumarius, I found another of these almost unbelievably beautiful tiny frogs hop-walking on the forest floor.