Description of six new species of the subgenus Panophrys within the genus Megophrys (Anura, Megophryidae) from southeastern China based on molecular and morphological data

Abstract

The diversity of the subgenus Panophrys within the genus Megophrys has been revealed to be extremely underestimated from southeastern China. Herpetological surveys coupled with extensive sampling in a longitudinal mountain belt located in southeastern China resulted in the discoveries of six new species of the subgenus Panophrys. Furthermore, the new discoveries support the findings of “micro-endemism”, “sympatric phenomenon” and “sympatric but distant phylogenetically” which appear to be common among Panophrys species, and also indicates that the Asian horned toads would be good candidates for studies on speciation and biogeography, and additionally emphasizes the conservation difficulties of these toads.

A new Megophrys Kuhl & Van Hasselt (Amphibia, Megophryidae) from southeastern China

“…Many Megophrys species have narrow distributions fitting the "micro-endemism" model of Liu et al (2018) and Wang et al (2019). Similarly, according to our surveys, Megophrys xianjuensis sp.…”

“…Similarly, in this county, we have also not found M. kuatunensis and M. lishuiensis even though they were reported to be distributed in western and southern parts of Zhejiang Province, China A B (Fei et al 2016;Wang et al 2017b); therefore, we suggest that probably in Xianju County, Zhejiang Province, China, there is no M. boettgeri, M. kuatunensis or M. lishuiensis. Considering the high underestimated species level and localised diversification in Megophrys (Chen et al 2017;Liu et al 2018;Wang et al 2019), wider and in-depth surveys should be conducted in the eastern part of Zhejiang Province and adjacent areas for detecting distributional range of the new species and for finding cryptic species.…”

“…For molecular analyses, the available sequence data for all related species of the genus Megophrys were downloaded from GenBank, mainly from previous studies (Chen et al 2017;Mahony et al 2017;Liu et al 2018;Wang et al 2019; for GenBank accession number see Table 1). For phylogenetic analyses, corresponding sequences of one Leptobrachella oshanensis and one Leptobrachium boringii were downloaded (for GenBank accession number see Table 1) and used as outgroups according to Chen et al (2017).…”

“…shuichengensis Tian & Sun, 1995Fei et al 2009M. shunhuangensis Wang, Deng, Liu, Wu & Liu, 2019Wang et al 2019M. spinata Liu & Hu, 1973Fei et al 2009M.…”

“…The genus is suggested to harbour both cryptic diversity and highly localised species diversification (Chen et al 2017;Mahony et al 2017Mahony et al , 2018Liu et al 2018). For example, in the genus, just in China, 41 cryptic species were suggested by molecular phylogenetic analyses in , and six of them were subsequently described (Li et al 2018;Wang et al 2019). To present, 48 Megophrys species have been described in China.…”