After a longer hiatus I am using the COVID-19 induced home isolation for a new attempt at this blog that highlights new species that share this planet with us. They all have little stories to tell. My goal is only to quickly introduce them to a larger public. Enjoy!
Litter frogs (Family Megophryidae) are live in South East Asia. They are mostly famous for their elaborate camouflage which makes many of them look like dead leaves. A widely known species is the long nosed horned frog. Our new species was found during an expedition to montane evergreen forest in China. The species name refers to the location this species was found, Taibai Town in Suiyang County of Guizohu Province.
For the experts: This study describes a new species of the genus Leptobrachella, Leptobrachella suiyangensis sp. 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 genus Leptobrachellacontains 75 species, 21 of which are found in China, including seven species reported from Guizhou Province. The uncorrected sequence divergence percentage between Leptobrachella suiyangensis sp. 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 genus Leptobrachella in southwest China need to be further investigated.
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