A new species of spotted leaf frog, genusPhasmahyla(Amphibia, Phyllomedusidae) from Southeast Brazil

Abstract

Based on concordant differences in male advertisement call, tadpole morphology, and absence of haplotype sharing in the barcoding 16S mitochondrial DNA, we describe here a new species of spotted leaf frog of the genus Phasmahyla from Atlantic Forest, State of Rio de Janeiro, Southeast Brazil. The new species is most similar to P. cochranae (type locality) and P. spectabilis (type locality). It differs from these species by the size of the calcar, moderate-sized body (snout-vent length 30.4–34.4 mm in adult eight males), and in the advertisement call. The tadpoles of Phasmahyla lisbella sp. nov. differ from P. exilis, P. spectabilis, P. timbo, P. guttata and P. jandaia because they do not have row of teeth in the anterior part; differ from P. cruzi by the shape of the anterior end of the oral disc. Through genetic data (phylogenetic distance and haplotype genealogy) we diagnosed the new species where the genetic divergences among its congeners is about 3–6% in a fragment of the 16S rRNA gene, which is above the threshold typically characterizing distinct species of anurans. However, the new species can be distinguished from other congeneric species based on an integrative approach (molecular, bioacoustics, larval, and adult morphology).

Notes on vocalizations of Brazilian amphibians IV: advertisement calls of 20 Atlantic Forest frog species

“…Before our work, vocalizations of species in the genus Phasmahyla was only known for three species (out of eight): Phasmahyla spectabilis (Dias et al, 2011), Phasmahyla timbo (Cruz, Napoli & Fonseca, 2008), and Phasmahyla lisbella (Pereira et al, 2018). Calls of these three species are very similar to those of Phasmahyla cochranae and Phasmahyla jandaia .…”

“…Calls of these three species are very similar to those of Phasmahyla cochranae and Phasmahyla jandaia . All five species have calls composed by a single note with non-fused pulses (Cruz, Napoli & Fonseca, 2008; Dias et al, 2011; Pereira et al, 2018). Phasmahyla jandaia has the longest notes (achieving 0.09 s), while Phasmahyla spectabilis and Phasmahyla timbo have notes around 0.03 s (Cruz, Napoli & Fonseca, 2008; Dias et al, 2011).…”

“…Phasmahyla jandaia has the longest notes (achieving 0.09 s), while Phasmahyla spectabilis and Phasmahyla timbo have notes around 0.03 s (Cruz, Napoli & Fonseca, 2008; Dias et al, 2011). Phasmahyla lisbella shows high variation in note duration, from 0.007 to 0.087 s (Pereira et al, 2018). Probably this difference is due to the larger number of pulses in Phasmahyla jandaia than in other species.…”

Hidden by the name: A new fluorescent pumpkin toadlet from the Brachycephalus ephippium group (Anura: Brachycephalidae)

“…The Integrative Taxonomy approach [ 20 ] highlighted the importance of morphological features associated with different data sources, which was exemplified in several anuran groups [ 1 , 10 , 21 ]. The importance of combining more than one data source in Brachycephalus studies is related to the recent species divergence [ 22 – 24 ], granting the use of multiple lines of evidence as morphology [ 22 ], osteology [ 25 , 26 ], bioacoustics [ 27 , 28 ] and molecular identity [ 9 ] a gold standard approach for the delimitation of species of this genus.…”

A new tiny toad species ofAmazophrynella(Anura: Bufonidae) from east of the Guiana Shield in Amazonia, Brazil

“…Combining different approaches (e.g., morphological, bioacoustic, population genetics, ecology) have been successfully used to delimit new species in the Neotropics (e.g., Andrade et al, 2019;Mângia et al, 2018;Pereira et al, 2018), and revealed new taxa within many species complexes traditionally classified as a single nominal organism (Fouquet et al, 2012a;Fouquet et al, 2014;Gehara et al, 2013). Although the megadiverse Amazon Forest biome harbors many species that are widespread, many anurans are philopatric with poor dispersal abilities, which frequently results in strong genetic structure and allopatric distributions (Funk, Caminer & Ron, 2012;Pirani et al, 2020;Vacher et al, 2017).…”