While the frog was common historically, it is currently endangered due to habitat loss from agriculture, climate change, crop fumigation, and, most significantly, the virulent chytrid fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. This fungus was predicted to lower the population of the species by over 80%. This toad was rediscovered after an absence of 14 years by a Project Atelopus team in early 2008 in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains of Magdalena, Colombia.