A new Andean treefrog (Amphibia: Hyloscirtus bogotensis group) from Ecuador: an example of community involvement for conservation Mario H. Yánez-Muñoz 1 , Juan Pablo Reyes-Puig 1,2 , Diego Batallas-Revelo 1,3 , Callie Broaddus 4 , Miguel Urgilés-Merchán 1 , Diego F. Cisneros-Heredia 1,5 and Juan M. Guayasamin 6,7 1 Unidad de Investigación, Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad (INABIO), Quito, Pichincha, Ecuador 2 Dirección de Reservas de Fundación Ecominga, Fundación Ecominga, Baños, Tungurahua, Ecuador 3 Departamento de Biodiversidad Ecología y Evolución de la Facultad de Ciencias Biológicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain 4 Reserva: The Youth Land Trust, Washington, D.C., USA 5 Museo de Zoología, Instituto iBIOTROP & Instituto Biósfera, Colegio de Ciencias Biológicas y Ambientales, Universidad San Francisco de Quito USFQ, Quito, Pichincha, Ecuador 6 Laboratorio de Biología Evolutiva, Instituto Biósfera-USFQ, Colegio de Ciencias Biológicas y Ambientales COCIBA, Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Quito, Pichincha, Ecuador 7 Department of Biology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States ABSTRACT We provide several lines of evidence to delimit a new species of Hyloscirtus and define its phylogenetic position inside the Hyloscirtus bogotensis group. The new species is the sister taxon to Hyloscirtus mashpi and is related to a clade formed by H. alytolylax and a putative new species from the province of El Oro in, southwestern Ecuador. Hyloscirtus conscientia sp. nov. is described from the montane forests of the Mira River basin in the extreme northwestern Ecuador. The new species is characterized as follows: tympanic annulus conspicuous, tip of snout in dorsal view subacuminate, middorsal stripe formed by melanophores larger and less dense, dorsal skin with individual iridophores forming dots, scarcely distributed across dorsum. Our study also highlights the importance of the Mira River Valley as a biogeographic barrier; suggesting research efforts north and south of the valley are likely to reveal additional endemic cryptic diversity. Finally, our partnership with Reserva: The Youth Land Trust, Rainforest Trust and EcoMinga Foundation has produced a novel and meaningful way to connect young people with biodiversity discovery and habitat conservation. Subjects Biodiversity, Biogeography, Conservation Biology, Taxonomy, Zoology Keywords Criptic diversity, Hyloscirtus conscientia sp. nov., Mirra river basin, Montane forest, Northwestern Ecuador How to cite this article Yánez-Muñoz MH, Reyes-Puig JP, Batallas-Revelo D, Broaddus C, Urgilés-Merchán M, Cisneros-Heredia DF, Guayasamin JM. 2021. A new Andean treefrog (Amphibia: Hyloscirtus bogotensis group) from Ecuador: an example of community involvement for conservation. PeerJ 9:e11914 DOI 10.7717/peerj.11914 Submitted 19 March 2021 Accepted 14 July 2021 Published 6 August 2021 Corresponding author Mario H. Yánez-Muñoz, mario.yanez@biodiversidad.gob.ec Academic editor Tomas Hrbek Additional Information and Declarations can be found on page 28 DOI 10.7717/peerj.11914 Copyright 2021 Yánez-Muñoz et al. Distributed under Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0