TY - JOUR
T1 - A new cryptic species of Nyctibatrachus (Amphibia, Anura, Nyctibatrachidae) with description of its tadpole from the central Western Ghats, India
AU - Pavan Kumar, K. S.
AU - Vishwajith, H. U.
AU - Anisha, Anand
AU - Dayananda, G. Y.
AU - Gururaja, Kotambylu Vasudeva
AU - Priti, Hebbar
N1 - Funding Information:
HP is thankful to the Department of Science and Technology (DST) for the INSPIRE Faculty Fellowship (DST/INSPIRE/04/2017/003152). We are thankful to the Forest Department, Karnataka for the permissions (PCCF(WL)/E2/CR-49/2018-19). HP and AA are thankful to Kartik Sunagar, Evolutionary Venomics Lab for providing the lab space. KVG thanks Zoological Survey of India, Calicut, and Kolkata for accessing specimens. HP and KVG thank Rahul Khot of the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) for providing help in deposition of vouchers. We thank Vithoba Hegde of BNHS in providing help in accessing the specimens. We thank Nithin Divakar for the acoustical recording of N. vrijeuni species. We are thankful to the anonymous reviewer and Miguel Vences for the critical comments on the manuscript which has helped in improving the manuscript considerably.
Funding Information:
HP is thankful to the Department of Science and Technology (DST) for the INSPIRE Faculty Fellowship (DST/ INSPIRE/04/2017/003152). We are thankful to the Forest Department, Karnataka for the permissions (PCCF(WL)/ E2/CR-49/2018-19). HP and AA are thankful to Kartik Sunagar, Evolutionary Venomics Lab for providing the lab space. KVG thanks Zoological Survey of India, Calicut, and Kolkata for accessing specimens. HP and KVG thank Rahul Khot of the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) for providing help in deposition of vouchers. We thank Vithoba Hegde of BNHS in providing help in accessing the specimens. We thank Nithin Divakar for the acoustical recording of N. vrijeuni species. We are thankful to the anonymous reviewer and Miguel Vences for the critical comments on the manuscript which has helped in improving the manuscript considerably.
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2022 Magnolia Press.
PY - 2022/11/15
Y1 - 2022/11/15
N2 - We describe a new species of night frog belonging to the genus Nyctibatrachus from the central Western Ghats, India. Nyctibatrachus tunga sp. nov. is distinguished from all congeners by a combination of (1) body size medium (SVL 37.0-40.2 mm ♂, 42.4-47.4 mm ♀), (2) head wider than long (HW 16.0-17.6 mm ♂, 17.4-20.3 mm ♀, HL 11.7-13.6 mm ♂, 13.4-15.5 mm ♀), (3) skin on dorsal and lateral surfaces with glandular folds and throat with dense glandular longitudinal folds, belly white, (4) webbing on toes medium, reaching the third subarticular tubercle on either side of fourth toe (5) presence of nuptial pad and femoral glands in adult males, (6) dorsal body color dark brown, ventrally buff colored except belly, (7) finger disc weakly developed (fd3 0.8±0.1 mm ♂, 1.0±0.1 mm ♀; fw3 0.5±0.1 mm ♂, 0.8±0.1 mm ♀), (8) toe disc moderately developed (td4 1.2±0.2 mm ♂, 1.6±0.1 mm ♀; tw4 0.8±0.1 mm ♂, 0.7±0.0 mm ♀), (9) third finger disc without dorso-terminal groove, fourth toe disc with dorso-terminal groove cover bifurcate distally. Further, molecular phylogeny based on two mitochondrial genes (16S rRNA and ND1), reveals that the new species is sister taxon to N. vrijeuni and N. shiradi. Based on the analysis of 16S rRNA, the new species is genetically divergent by 2.0% and 2.6% from N. vrijeuni and N. shiradi respectively indicating weak but consistent differences to these two species. The bioacoustic analysis also indicated that the new species differed from one of its closest congeners, N. vrijeuni by a higher dominant frequency in advertisement calls. At present, Nyctibatrachus tunga sp. nov. is known from streams within evergreen forests and coffee estates of the upper catchment areas of river Tunga in central Western Ghats.
AB - We describe a new species of night frog belonging to the genus Nyctibatrachus from the central Western Ghats, India. Nyctibatrachus tunga sp. nov. is distinguished from all congeners by a combination of (1) body size medium (SVL 37.0-40.2 mm ♂, 42.4-47.4 mm ♀), (2) head wider than long (HW 16.0-17.6 mm ♂, 17.4-20.3 mm ♀, HL 11.7-13.6 mm ♂, 13.4-15.5 mm ♀), (3) skin on dorsal and lateral surfaces with glandular folds and throat with dense glandular longitudinal folds, belly white, (4) webbing on toes medium, reaching the third subarticular tubercle on either side of fourth toe (5) presence of nuptial pad and femoral glands in adult males, (6) dorsal body color dark brown, ventrally buff colored except belly, (7) finger disc weakly developed (fd3 0.8±0.1 mm ♂, 1.0±0.1 mm ♀; fw3 0.5±0.1 mm ♂, 0.8±0.1 mm ♀), (8) toe disc moderately developed (td4 1.2±0.2 mm ♂, 1.6±0.1 mm ♀; tw4 0.8±0.1 mm ♂, 0.7±0.0 mm ♀), (9) third finger disc without dorso-terminal groove, fourth toe disc with dorso-terminal groove cover bifurcate distally. Further, molecular phylogeny based on two mitochondrial genes (16S rRNA and ND1), reveals that the new species is sister taxon to N. vrijeuni and N. shiradi. Based on the analysis of 16S rRNA, the new species is genetically divergent by 2.0% and 2.6% from N. vrijeuni and N. shiradi respectively indicating weak but consistent differences to these two species. The bioacoustic analysis also indicated that the new species differed from one of its closest congeners, N. vrijeuni by a higher dominant frequency in advertisement calls. At present, Nyctibatrachus tunga sp. nov. is known from streams within evergreen forests and coffee estates of the upper catchment areas of river Tunga in central Western Ghats.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85143132290&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85143132290&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.11646/zootaxa.5209.1.4
DO - 10.11646/zootaxa.5209.1.4
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85143132290
SN - 1175-5326
VL - 5209
SP - 69
EP - 92
JO - Zootaxa
JF - Zootaxa
IS - 1
ER -