A new species of Leptobrachella (Anura, Megophryidae) from Guizhou Province, China

By

Luo, Tao
XIAO, Ning
Gao, Kai
Zhou, Jiang

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2020

Original Publication

ZooKeys

Volume

923

Pages

115--140

Subjects

Leptobrachella suiyangensis sp. nov , mitochondrial DNA , Morphology , Southwest China

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia, Bulgaria Pensoft Publishers

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.923.47172

 

Abstract

This study describes a new species of the genusLeptobrachella,Leptobrachella suiyangensissp. nov.from the Huoqiuba Nature Reserve, Suiyang County, Guizhou Province, China, based on morphological data and phylogenetic analyses (16S rRNA mtDNA). The new species can be distinguished from other congeners by the molecular divergence and by a combination of morphological characters, including body size, dorsal and ventral patterns, dorsal skin texture, size of the pectoral and femoral glands, degree of webbing and fringing on the toes and fingers, dorsum coloration, and iris coloration in life. Currently, the genusLeptobrachellacontains 75 species, 21 of which are found in China, including seven species reported from Guizhou Province. The uncorrected sequence divergence percentage betweenLeptobrachella suiyangensissp. nov.and all homologous DNA sequences available for the 16S rRNA gene was found to be >4.7%. The new record of the species and its relationships with others in the same genus imply that species distribution, habitat variation, environmental adaptation, and diversity of the genusLeptobrachellain southwest China need to be further investigated.