1018 Accepted by S. Carranza: 9 Jun. 2005; published: 15 Jul. 2005 1 ZOOTAXA ISSN 1175-5326 (print edition) ISSN 1175-5334 (online edition) Copyright © 2005 Magnolia Press Zootaxa 1018: 1–14 (2005) www.mapress.com/zootaxa/ Morphometric analysis to differentiate taxonomically seven spe- cies of Eleutherodactylus (Amphibia: Anura: Leptodactylidae) from an Andean cloud forest of Colombia SANDY B. ARROYO 1,2 , PAOLA M. SÁNCHEZ 1,3 , MARTHA PATRICIA RAMÍREZ- PINILLA 1,4 , HENRY A. SUÁREZ 1 , DANIEL R. MIRANDA-ESQUIVEL 5 1 Colección Herpetológica, Museo de Historia Natural, Universidad Industrial de Santander, Bucaramanga, Colombia. 2 Present address: Laboratorio de Anfibios, Instituto de Ciencias Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Colom- bia, Bogotá, Colombia. e-mail: sbarroyos@unal.edu.co. 3 Present address: Museo de Zoologia de la Universidad de São Paulo -MZUSP-, Universidade de São Paulo, Herpetología, Av. Nazaré, 481-Ipiranga, CEP: 04263-000, Sao Paulo, SP, Brazil. email: sanmart_11@yahoo.com 4 Laboratorio de Biología Reproductiva de Vertebrados, Universidad Industrial de Santander, Bucaramanga, Colombia. e-mail: mpramir@uis.edu.co 5 Laboratorio de Sistemática y Biogeografia, Universidad Industrial de Santander, Bucaramanga, Colombia. e-mail: dmiranda@uis.edu.co ABSTRACT The genus Eleutherodactylus contains a large number of species and species groups that have had a notoriously difficult taxonomy. Morphometric analyses open new approaches and perspectives to evaluate morphological characters in the taxonomic context. Morphometric and statistical analyses were applied to differentiate taxonomically seven Eleutherodactylus species that co-occur in an Andean cloud forest (six of these belonging to the unistrigatus group). Fifty one characters were evaluated to determine those characters that best separate the species and species groups. Using morphometric analyses we were able to discriminate among species and species groups defined a priori. Qualitative characters, particularly the colour patterns, allowed recognising the juveniles of two groups; however, the discriminant analyses could not differentiate them. Quantitative charac- ters allowed easy recognition of those species with a large sample size. Ten of the eleven quantita- tive variables showed a good discriminatory power: Linear combination of tympanum-eye distance and eyelid width, tympanum-eye distance, tympanum diameter, phalangeal width of finger IV, head length, eyelid width, head width, eye diameter, snout-vent length, and interorbital distance. Dis- tance between eye and nostril was excluded from the discriminant model because of its low dis- criminatory power. Thus, morphometric and qualitative variables proved be useful in differentiating among Eleutherodactylus species and species groups at adult and juvenile levels.