A new frog: Raorchestes rezakhani

Bush frogs belong to a genus of frogs in the family Rhacophoridae. These frogs can be found in South and Southeast Asia and among the most spectacular members of this group are some so-called flying frogs. Well, the expression gliding frog is perhaps better, as they have the ability to achieve gliding flight. Our new species is not known to be a glider but nevertheless is a new exciting find in Bangladesh. By the way these little guys are tiny, just about 2cm length as adults.

This new species was named after a pioneer in the field of wildlife research in Bangladesh, Dr. Mohammad Ali Reza Khan.

For the experts: Raorchestes is a speciose genus of bush frogs with high diversity occurring in the Western Ghats of India. Relatively fewer species have been recorded across India, through Bangladesh, southern China, into Vietnam and Peninsular Malaysia. Many bush frogs are morphologically cryptic and therefore remain undescribed. Here, a new species, Raorchestes rezakhani sp. nov., is described from northeastern Bangladesh based on morphological characters, genetics, and bioacoustics. The 16S rRNA gene distinguished this species from 48 known species of this genus. Bayesian Inference and Maximum Likelihood analyses indicated that the new species was most similar to R. tuberohumerus, a species found in the Western Ghats, and to R. gryllus, a species found in Vietnam. Bioacoustics indicated that their calls were similar in pattern to most Raorchestes species, although number of pulses, duration of pulses, pulse intervals and amplitude differentiated it from a few other species. It is suggested that northeastern India, Bangladesh, northern Myanmar, and southern China represent important, relatively unexplored areas that could yield additional species of Raorchestes. Since many remaining habitat patches in Bangladesh are under severe threat from deforestation, efforts should be made to protect these last patches from further degradation.