A new minute Pristimantis (Amphibia: Anura: Strabomantidae) from the Andes of southern Ecuador

Abstract

We describe a new rainfrog species (Pristimantis), from the wetland complex Oña, Nabón, Saraguro and Yacuambi, in the Andes of southern Ecuador, at altitudes ranging between 3000–3400 m a.s.l. Pristimantis tiktik sp. nov. is a small frog, displaying sexual dimorphism (the males with dorsum of various shades of gray, brown, orange or green and a whitish or pinkish yellow venter; females with brownish gray or gray dorsum and a reticulated white and black venter), with SVL ranging between 19.7–20.4 mm in females (n = 3) and 16.1–18.4 mm in males (n = 6). The skin on dorsum is tuberculated, that on venter is coarsely areolate, dorsolateral folds are absent, tympanic membrane is absent but the tympanic annulus is evident, cranial crests are absent, discs on fingers just slightly expanded, heel is lacking enlarged tubercles, inner edge of tarsus is bearing a long fold, Toe V is slightly longer than Toe III and the iris coloration is bronze with fine black reticulations. The males have a large subgular vocal sac that extends onto the chest and vocal slits but lack nuptial pads. The unique advertisement call consists of long duration series of periodically repeated clicks: “tik”. Molecular analyses place the new species in the recently resurrected P. orestes group, as the sister species of the assemblage that contains P. bambu, P. mazar, P. simonbolivari and an undescribed species.

Genetic delimitation of Pristimantis orestes (Lynch, 1979) and P. saturninoi Brito et al., 2017 and description of two new terrestrial frogs from the Pristimantis orestes species group (Anura, Strabomantidae)

“…In contrast, the Peruvian species P.melanogaster (Duellman & Pramuk, 1999) and P.simonsii (Boulenger, 1900), which were previously placed in the P.orestes group by Lynch and Duellman (1997), are members of different clades. Similar results were found by Székely et al (2018), with the inclusion of the newly described species P.tiktik (Székely et al, 2018) within the P.orestes group.…”

“…Recent phylogenies published by Brito et al (2017) and Székely et al (2018) have advanced our understanding of the P.orestes species group but continue to recover P.orestes as three different lineages from three localities of southern Ecuador: 1) Cajanuma (Loja), 2) Lagunas del Compadre (Loja) and 3) Sigsig (Azuay). The issue of paraphyly arises from a lack of molecular data from the type species that was collected in 1971 by William E. Duellman and Bruce MacBride (Lynch 1979) in the locality of Urdaneta, province of Loja.…”

“…While the analyses of Brito et al (2017) and Székely et al (2018) have increased our knowledge of the phylogenetic relationships in the P.orestes group, these molecular analyses have also identified polytomies generated by erroneous assignment of species to multiple different clades due to morphological misidentifications and because good quality DNA samples are unavailable from formalin-fixed type specimens (most notably, P.orestes ). Thus, further genetic characterizations are essential to accurately delimit species within the P.orestes species group.…”

Fifty years after: A taxonomic revision of the amphibian species from the Ecuadorian biodiversity hotspot Abra de Zamora, with description of two new Pristimantis species

“…Pristimantis orestes species group [sensu 6 , 16 , 48 ]. Three species of this species group were described from Abra de Zamora.…”

Six new species of Pristimantis (Anura: Strabomantidae) from Llanganates National Park and Sangay National Park in Amazonian cloud forests of Ecuador

“…Another significant factor in the current discovery of new species seems to be the deployment of a large group of Ecuadorian amphibian taxonomists working on a hot spot of amphibian diversity ( e.g ., Ortega-Andrade et al, 2015 ; Navarrete, Venegas & Ron, 2016 ; Ramírez-Jaramillo et al, 2018 ; Sánchez-Nivicela et al, 2018 ; Szèkely et al, 2018 ; Páez & Ron, 2019 , Reyes-Puig et al, 2019 ; Valencia et al, 2019 ; Yánez-Muñoz et al, 2019 ; Carrión-Olmedo & Ron, 2021 ; Zumel, Buckley & Ron, 2021 ; Guayasamin et al, 2022 ). This large group of taxonomists, working on several Ecuadorian institutions, would explain why Ecuador is the region with the highest density of new amphibian species described in the world between 2016 and 2020 ( Womack et al, 2022 ).…”