Lost for more than a century: the rediscovery of Alsodes vittatus (Philippi, 1902) (Anura, Alsodidae), one of the rarest and most elusive amphibians from Chile

By

Correa, Claudio
Riveros-Riffo Edvin
Donoso, Juan Pablo

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2025

Original Publication

ZooKeys

Volume

1230

Pages

195--212

Subjects

Alsodes igneus , Alsodes neuquensis , Alsodes verrucosus , Andean foothills , Chilean amphibians , conservation category , Rudolph Philippi , taxonomy

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia, Bulgaria Pensoft Publishers

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1230.135523

 

Abstract

The legacy of the 19th-century naturalist Rudolph Philippi to the taxonomy of Chilean amphibians has been controversial since most of the species he described in 1902 have been questioned or invalidated. Here, we describe the rediscovery of Alsodes vittatus, a species that was not observed for 130 years after being collected, in three places very close to the type locality in the Andean foothills of the La Araucanía Region, Chile. The species was identified phenotypically by the vertebral line of some individuals, which turned out to be an intrapopulationally polymorphic trait. A phylogenetic analysis with mitochondrial genes, including most of the species of the genus, showed that the discovered populations of A. vittatus are paraphyletic with respect to the only individual of A. neuquensis included. We also describe populations from another area where A. vittatus was searched in the past, which we assigned here to A. igneus due to its geographic location and phylogenetic and phenotypic affinity. All these populations are part of two well-supported clades, but their relationships with nearby species (e.g., A. norae and A. barrioi) remain uncertain. These results ratify that the diversity and phylogenetic relationships of the genus in the Chilean Andes, particularly in the La Araucanía Region, are not yet well established. We discuss the possibility that A. vittatus and A. neuquensis, known until now only in Argentina, are the same species, and suggest downgrading the conservation status of A. vittatus from Critically Endangered to Endangered, considering the information from the new localities discovered.