A new species of spiny-backed tree frog, genus Osteocephalus (Anura, Hylidae), from the Yanachaga Chemillén National Park in central Peru

By

Venegas, Pablo J.
García-Ayachi, Luis A.
Toral, Eduardo
Malqui, José
Ron, Santiago R.

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2023-7-6

Original Publication

Evolutionary systematics

Volume

7

Series / Issue

Issue: 2

Pages

237--251

Subjects

Biodiversity , DNA , new species , Osteocephalus mimeticus , Phylogeny , tadpole , taxonomy

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Hamburg Centrum für Naturkunde (CeNak) 2017-

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/evolsyst.7.102360

 

Abstract

We describe a new species ofOsteocephalusFitzinger, 1843 using morphological traits of adult frogs and its larvae, as well as molecular evidence. The new species occurs in the premontane forest of the Cordillera del Yanachaga in the Andes of central Peru, at elevations between 1000 and 1150 m a.s.l. It belongs to theOsteocephalus mimeticusspecies group and is the sister species ofO. mimeticus. It is most similar to three species with predominantly dark irises, tuberculate dorsal skin, and brown dorsal coloration:O. festaePeracca, 1904,O. mimeticusMelin, 1941, andO. verrucigerWerner, 1901. Of these three species, the most similar isO. mimeticus. However, the new species can be easily distinguished fromO. mimeticusby having a cream or creamy-tan venter with a well-defined pattern of brown chocolate blotches and flecks (venter cream, tan, or brown without marks inO. mimeticus). The tadpoles ofO. vasquezisp. nov. are strikingly different from the tadpoles ofO. mimeticusby having a larger oral disk with nine lower labial tooth rows (only six inO. mimeticus). Tadpoles of the new species and those ofO. festaeare unique amongOsteocephalusby belonging to the suctorial ecomorphological guild as shown by their large oral disks. Our time tree suggest that the new species diverged from its sister species at the beginning of the Pleistocene, ~2.5 million years ago.