Skip to main content Skip to main navigation menu Skip to site footer
Responsive image
Issue: Vol. 4388 No. 2: 2 Mar. 2018
Type: Article
Published: 2018-03-01
DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4388.2.5
Page range: 221–237
Abstract views: 137
PDF downloaded: 3

A new Puddle Frog, genus Phrynobatrachus (Amphibia: Anura: Phrynobatrachidae), from the eastern part of the Upper Guinea
biodiversity hotspot, West Africa

Museum für Naturkunde, Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science, Invalidenstrasse 43, 10115 Berlin, Germany Centre Suisse de Recherche Scientifique, 01 BP 1303, Abidjan, Côte d´Ivoire
Jean Lorougnon Guéd University, Department of Biology and Animal Physiology, UFR-Environnement, BP 150, Daloa, Côte d´Ivoire
Museum für Naturkunde, Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science, Invalidenstrasse 43, 10115 Berlin, Germany
Centre Suisse de Recherche Scientifique, 01 BP 1303, Abidjan, Côte d´Ivoire
Museum für Naturkunde, Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science, Invalidenstrasse 43, 10115 Berlin, Germany
Forestry Research Institute of Ghana, Kumasi, Ghana Wildlife and Range Management Department, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana
Museum für Naturkunde, Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science, Invalidenstrasse 43, 10115 Berlin, Germany
Amphibia Phrynobatrachus tanoeensis sp. nov. Phrynobatrachus intermedius Phrynobatrachus liberiensis Phrynobatrachus tokba Upper Guinea Forests Ivory Coast Ghana

Abstract

We describe a new species of Phrynobatrachus from swamp forests in the southern border region of Ivory Coast and Ghana. The new species differs from all other known West African Phrynobatrachus by the combination of adult snout-vent-length being between 20 and 30 mm; absence of a spiny tubercle on the eyelid; presence of a dark face mask; a black throat in adult males; narrow and partly indistinct scapular ridges or comma shaped warts; distinct spinulae on males’ throats and dorsal surfaces; pronounced pedal webbing; round finger- and toe tips, not enlarged to discs; a white belly with small blackish spots in both sexes; more than one wide dark cross bar on hind legs; and rosé to reddish colour on ventral parts of hind legs in both sexes. It is further defined by its genetic and acoustic characters. It is morphologically and genetically most similar to P. liberiensis and P. intermedius.

 

References

  1. Avenard, J.-M., Eldin, M., Girard, G., Sircoulon, J., Touchebeuf, P., Guillaumet, J.-L. & Adjanohoun, E. (1971) Le milieu naturel de la Côte d’Ivoire. ORSTOM, Paris, 391 pp.

    Béligné, V. (1994) Etude de l’état du milieu naturel du Parc National du Banco: recommandation pour sa sauvegarde et son aménagement. Rapport du Fonds Mondial pour la Nature (WWF), Abidjan, 48 pp.

    Frost, D.R. (2016) Amphibian species of the World: an online reference. Version 6.0. American Museum of Natural History, New York, USA. Accessible from: http://research.amnh.org/herpetology/amphibia/index.html (accessed 13 August 2017)

    Gridi-Papp, M. (2003) SoundRuler: acoustic analysis for research and teaching. Available from: http://soundruler.sourceforge.net (accessed 13 August 2017)

    Guibé, J. & Lamotte, M. (1963) La réserve naturelle intégrale du Mont Nimba. XXVIII. Batraciens du genre Phrynobatrachus. Mémoires de l’Institut fondamental d’Afrique noire, 66, 601–627.

    Hall, T.A. (1999) BioEdit: a user-friendly biological sequence alignment editor and analysis program for Windows 95/98/NT. Nucleic Acids Symposium Series, 41, 95–98.

    Hillers, A., Zimkus, B. & Rödel, M.-O. (2008) A new species of Phrynobatrachus (Amphibia: Anura: Phrynobatrachidae) from north-western Guinea, West Africa. Zootaxa, 1815, 43–50.

    Huelsenbeck, J.P. & Ronquist, F. (2001) MRBAYES: Bayesian inference of phylogenetic trees. Bioinformatics, 17, 754–755.
    https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/17.8.754

    IUCN (2017) The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2017-2. Accessible at http://www.iucnredlist.org (last accessed at 14 September 2017).

    Kpan, T.F., Adeba, P.J., Kouamé, N.G., Koné, I., Kouassi, K.P. & Rödel, M.-O. (2014) The anuran fauna of a Volunteer Nature Reserve: the Tanoé-Ehy Swamp Forests, south-eastern Ivory Coast, West Africa. Zoosystematics and Evolution, 90, 261–270.

    https://doi.org/10.3897/zse.90.8796

    Köhler, J., Jansen, M., Rodríguez, A., Kok, P.J.R., Toledo, L.F., Emmrich, M., Glaw, F., Haddad, C.F.B., Rödel, M.-O. & Vences, M. (2017) The use of bioacoustics in anuran taxonomy: theory, terminology, methods and recommendations for best practice. Zootaxa, 4251 (1), 1–124.
    https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4251.1

    Maley, J. (1996) The African rain forest – main characteristics of changes in vegetation and climate from the Upper Cretaceous to the Quaternary. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Section B, Biological Sciences, 104, 31–73.
    https://doi.org/10.1017/S0269727000006114

    Myers, N., Mittermeier, R.A., Mittermeier, C.G., da Fonseca, G.A.B. & Kent, J. (2000) Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities. Nature, 403, 853–858.
    https://doi.org/10.1038/35002501

    Palumbi, S., Martin, A., Romano, S., McMillan, W.O., Stice, L. & Grabowski, G. (1991) The simple fool's guide to PCR. Version 2. University of Hawaii, Hawai, 15 pp.

    Penner, J., Wegmann, M., Hillers, A., Schmidt, M. & Rödel, M.-O. (2011) A hotspot revisited – a biogeographical analysis of West African amphibians. Diversity and Distributions, 17, 1077–1088.
    https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1472-4642.2011.00801.x

    Perret, J.-L. (1988) Les espèces de Phrynobatrachus (Anura, Ranidae) à éperon palpébral. Archives des Sciences Genève, 41, 275–294.

    Rödel, M.-O. (2000) Herpetofauna of West Africa Vol. I. Amphibians of the West African Savanna. Edition Chimaira, Frankfurt/F., 335 pp.

    Rödel, M.-O. & Ernst, R. (2002) A new Phrynobatrachus from the Upper Guinean rain forest, West Africa, including a description of a new reproductive mode for the genus. Journal of Herpetology, 36, 561–571.
    https://doi.org/10.1670/0022-1511(2002)036[0561:ANPFTU]2.0.CO;2

    Rödel, M.-O., Barej, M.F., Hillers, A., Leaché, A.D., Kouamé, N.G., Ofori-Boateng, C., Assemian, N.E., Tohé, B., Penner, J., Hirschfeld, M., Doumbia, J., Gonwouo, L.N., Nopper, J., Brede, C., Diaz, R., Fujita, M., Gil, M., Segniagbeto, G.H., Ernst, R. & Sandberger, L. (2012) The genus Astylosternus in the Upper Guinea rainforests, West Africa, with the description of a new species (Amphibia: Anura: Arthroleptidae). Zootaxa, 3245, 1–29.

    Rödel, M.-O., Boateng, C.O., Penner, J. & Hillers, A. (2009a) A new cryptic Phrynobatrachus species (Amphibia: Anura: Phrynobatrachidae) from Ghana, West Africa. Zootaxa, 1970, 52–63.

    Rödel, M.-O., Burger, M., Zassi-Boulou, A.G., Emmrich, M., Penner, J. & Barej, M.F. (2015) Two new Phrynobatrachus species (Amphibia: Anura: Phrynobatrachidae) from the Republic of the Congo. Zootaxa, 4032 (1), 55–80.
    https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4032.1.3

    Rödel, M.-O., Kosuch, J., Grafe, T.U., Boistel, R., Assemian, N.E., Kouamé, N.G., Tohé, B., Gourène, G., Perret, J.-L., Henle, K., Tafforeau, P., Pollet, N. & Veith, M. (2009b) A new tree-frog genus and species from Ivory Coast, West Africa (Amphibia: Anura: Hyperoliidae). Zootaxa, 2044, 23–45.

    Rödel, M.-O., Ohler, A. & Hillers, A. (2010) A new extraordinary Phrynobatrachus (Amphibia: Anura: Phrynobatrachidae) from West Africa. Zoosystematics and Evolution, 86, 257–261.
    https://doi.org/10.1002/zoos.201000008

    Schick, S., Zimkus, B.M., Channing, A., Köhler, J. & Lötters, S. (2010) Systematics of ‚Little Brown Frogs’ from East Africa: recognition of Phynobatrachus scheffleri and description of a new species from the Kakamega Forest, Kenya (Amphibia: Phrynobatrachidae). Salamandra, 46, 24–36.

    Schiøtz, A. (1964) A preliminary list of amphibians collected in Ghana. Videnskabelige Meddelelser fra Dansk Naturhistorisk Forening, 127, 1–17.

    Stamatakis, A. (2006) RAxML-VI-HPC: Maximum Likelihood-based phylogenetic analyses with thousands of taxa and Mixed Models. Bioinformatics, 22, 2688–2690.
    https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btl446

    Stamatakis, A., Blagojevic, F., Nikolopoulos, D. & Antonopoulos, C. (2007) Exploring new search algorithms and hardware for phylogenetics: RAxML meets the IBM Cell. The Journal of VLSI Signal Processing Systems for Signal, Image, and Video Technology, 48, 271–286.
    https://doi.org/10.1007/s11265-007-0067-4

    Stewart, M.M. (1974) Parallel pattern polymorphism in the genus Phrynobatrachus (Amphibia: Ranidae). Copeia, 1974, 823–832.
    https://doi.org/10.2307/1442578

    Sueur, J., Aubin, T. & Simonis, C. (2008) Equipment review: seewave, a free modular tool for sound analysis and synthesis. Bioacoustics, 18, 213–226.
    https://doi.org/10.1080/09524622.2008.9753600

    Swofford, D.L. (2002) PAUP*. Phylogenetic Analysis Using Parsimony (*and Other Methods). Version 4.0b10. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, Massachusetts. [software]

    Thompson, J.D., Gibson, T.J., Plewniak, F., Jeanmougin, F. & Higgins, D.G. (1997) The ClustalX windows interface: flexible strategies for multiple sequence alignment aided by quality analysis tools. Nucleic Acids Research, 24, 4876–4882.
    https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/25.24.4876

    Uyeda, J.C., Drewes, R.C. & Zimkus, B.M. (2007) The California Academy of Sciences Gulf of Guinea Expeditions (2001, 2006) VI. A new species of Phrynobatrachus from the Gulf of Guinea Islands and a reanalysis of Phrynobatrachus dispar and P. feae (Anura: Phrynobatrachidea). Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences, 58 (No. 18), 367–385.

    Zimkus, B.M. & Gvoždík, V. (2013) Sky Islands of the Cameroon Volcanic Line: a diversification hot spot for puddle frogs (Phrynobatrachidae: Phrynobatrachus). Zoologica Scripta, 42, 591–611.
    https://doi.org/10.1111/zsc.12029

    Zimkus, B.M., Lawson, L., Loader, S.P. & Hanken, J. (2012) Terrestrialization, miniaturization and rates of diversification in African puddle frogs (Anura: Phrynobatrachidae). PloS ONE, 7 (4), e35118.
    https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0035118

    Zimkus, B.M., Rödel, M.-O. & Hillers, A. (2010) Complex patterns of continental speciation: molecular phylogenetics and biogeography of sub-Saharan puddle frogs (Phrynobatrachus). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolutioan, 55, 883–900.
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2009.12.012