Abstract
A new species, Amolops albispinus sp. nov. is described based on a series of specimens collected from Mt. Wutong, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China. The new species can be distinguished from other known congeners by molecular divergence in the mitochondrial COI and 16S rRNA gene and morphological characters including presence of white conical spines on the lips, loreal and temporal regions, excluding the tympanum; small body, SVL 36.7–42.4 mm in adult males and 43.1–51.9 mm in adult females; very rough dorsal skin of body with numerous raised large warts; olive-brown dorsum with dark brown blotches; strongly developed vomerine teeth; absence of vocal sacs; absence of tarsal glands; absence of dorsolateral folds; presence of circummarginals groove on the disk of first finger; and absence of outer metatarsal tubercles. At present, the genus Amolops contains 51 species, of which 23 occur in China.
References
Anderson, J. (1871) A list of the reptilian accession to the Indian Museum, Calcutta, from 1865 to 1870, with a description of some new species. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 40, 12–39.
Andersson, L.G. (1939) Batrachians from Burma, collected by Dr. R. Malaise, and from Bolivia and Ecuador, collected by Dr. C. Hammarlund. Arkiv för Zoologi, 30A, 1–24.
Annandale, N. (1912) Zoological results of the Arbor expedition 1911–1912. I. Batrachia. Records of the Indian Museum, 8, 7–59.
http://dx.doi.org/10.5962/bhl.part.1186Bain, R.H., Lathrop, A., Murphy, R.W., Orlov, N.L. & Cuc, H.T. (2003) Cryptic species of a cascade frog from Southeast Asia: taxonomic revisions and descriptions of six new species. American Museum Novitates, 3417, 1–60.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1206/0003-0082(2003)417<0001:CSOACF>2.0.CO;2Bain, R.H., Stuart, B.L., Orlov, N.L. & Reeder, T. (2006) Three new Indochinese species of cascade frogs (Amphibia: Ranidae) allied to Rana archotaphus. Copeia, 2006, 43–59.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1643/0045-8511(2006)006[0043:TNISOC]2.0.CO;2Bain, R.H. & Truong, N.Q. (2004) Herpetofaunal diversity of Ha Giang Province in northeastern Vietnam, with descriptions of two new species. American Museum Novitates, 3453, 1–42.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1206/0003-0082(2004)453<0001:HDOHGP>2.0.CO;2Biju, S., Mahony, S. & Kamei, R.G. (2010) Description of two new species of torrent frog, Amolops Cope (Anura: Ranidae) from a degrading forest in the northeast Indian state of Nagaland. Zootaxa, 2408, 31–66.
Blyth, E. (1853) Report of the curator, Zoological Department for August meeting. Journal of the Asiatic Society Bengal, 22, 580–584.
Boulenger, G.A. (1888) LXVI. Descriptions of two new Indian species of Rana. Journal of Natural History, 2, 506–508.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00222938809487521Boulenger, G.A. (1899a) On a collection of reptiles and batrachians made by Mr. JD La Touche in NW Fokien, China. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 11, 159–172.
Boulenger, G.A. (1899b) On the reptiles, batrachians, and fishes collected by the late Mr. John Whitehead in the interior of Hainan. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 4, 956–962.
Boulenger, G.A. (1899c) XLII.—Descriptions of new Batrachians in the collection of the British Museum (Natural History). Journal of Natural History, 3, 273–277.
Che, J., Chen, H.M., Yang, J.X., Jin, J.Q., Jiang, K., Yuan, Z.Y., Myrphy, R.W. & Zhang, Y.P. (2012) Universal COI primers for DNA barcoding amphibians. Molecular Ecology Resources, 12, 247–258.
Cope, E.D. (1865) Sketch of the primary groups of Batrachia Salientia. Natural History Review, 5, 97–120.
David, A. (1872) Rapport adressé à MM les Professeurs-Administrateurs du Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle. Nouvelles Archives du Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle, 7, 75–100.
Dever, J.A., Fuiten, A.M., Konu, Ö. & Wilkinson, J.A. (2012) Cryptic torrent frogs of Myanmar: an examination of the Amolops marmoratus species complex with the resurrection of Amolops afghanus and the identification of a new species. Copeia, 2012, 57–76.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1643/CH-10-180Dudgeon, D. (1995) River regulation in Southern China: ecological implications, conservation and environmental management. River research and applications, 11, 35–54.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/rrr.3450110105Fei, L., Hu, S.Q., Ye, C.Y. & Huang, Y.Z. (2009) Fauna Sinica. Amphibia Vol. 2 Anura. Science Press, Beijing, 881 pp.
Fei, L., Ye, C.Y. & Jiang, J.P. (2010) Colored atlas of Chinese amphibians. Sichuan Publishing Group. Sichuan Publishing House of Science & Technology, Sichuan, 519 pp.
Felsenstein, J.R. (2004) Inferring phylogenies. Journal of Classification, 22, 139–142.
Frost, D.R. (2015) Amphibian species of the world version 6.0, an online reference. Available from: http://research.amnh.org/vz/herpetology/amphibia/ (accessed 15 February 2016)
Funk, W.C., Caminer, M. & Ron, S.R. (2012) High levels of cryptic species diversity uncovered in Amazonian frogs. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B, 279,1806–1814.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2011.1653Günther, A.C.L.G. (1858) Neue Batrachier in der Sammlung des britischen Museums. Archiv für Naturgeschichte, 24, 319–328.
http://dx.doi.org/10.5962/bhl.part.5288Günther, A.C.L.G. (1875) Second report on collections of Indian reptiles obtained by the British Museum. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 43, 224–234.
Inger, R.F. & Chanard, T. (1997) A new species of ranid frog from Thailand, with comments on Rana livida (Blyth). Natural History Bulletin of the Siam Society, 45, 65–70.
Inger, R.F. & Kottelat, M. (1998) A new species of ranid frog from Laos. Raffles Bulletin of Zoology, 46, 29–34.
Inger, R.F., Orlov, N.L. & Darevsky, I.S. (1999) Frogs of Vietnam: a report on new collections. Fieldiana: Zoology, 92, 1–46.
Jiang, K., Fang, Y., Jiang, X., Zou, D.H., Jiang, J.P. & Che, J. (2016) A new species of the genus Amolops (Amphibia: Ranidae) from southeastern Tibet, China. Zoological Research, 37, 31–40.
Jiang, Y.M. (1983) A new species of the genus Staurois (Ranidae)—Staurois viridimaculatus. Acta Herpetologica Sinica, 2, 71.
Li, Y.L., Jin,M. J., Zhao, J., Liu, Z.Y., Wang, Y.Y. & Pang, H. (2014) Description of two new species of the genus Megophrys (Amphibia: Anura: Megophryidae) from Heishiding Nature Reserve, Fengkai, Guangdong, China, based on molecular and morphological data. Zootaxa, 3795 (4), 449–471.
http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.3795.4.5Liu, C.C. (1945) New frogs from west China. Journal of West China Border Research Society, Series B, 15, 28–43.
Liu, C.C. (1950) Amphibians of western China. Fieldiana: Zoology, 2, 1–400.
http://dx.doi.org/10.5962/bhl.part.4737Liu, C.C. & Hu, S.Q. (1961) Tailless amphibians of China. Science Press, Beijing, 364 pp.
Liu, C.C. & Hu, S.Q. (1975) Report on three new species of Amphibia from Fujian Province. Acta Zoologica Sinica, 21, 265–271.
Liu, W.Z. & Yang, D.T. (2000) A new species of Amolops (Anura: Ranidae) from Yunnan, China, with a discussion of karyological diversity in Amolops. Herpetologica, 56, 231–238.
Liu, W.Z., Yang, D.T., Ferraris, C., Matsui, M. & Price, A.H. (2000) Amolops bellulus: A new species of stream-breeding frog from western Yunnan, China (Anura: Ranidae). Copeia, 2000, 536–541.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1643/0045-8511(2000)000[0536:ABANSO]2.0.CO;2Matsui, M. & Nabhitabhata, J. (2006) A new species of Amolops from Thailand (Amphibia, Anura, Ranidae). Zoological science, 23, 727–732.
http://dx.doi.org/10.2108/zsj.23.727Meyer, C.P., Geller, J.B., Paulay, G. (2005) Fine scale endemism on coral reefs: archipelagic differentiation in turbinid gastropods. Evolution, 59, 113–125.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1554/04-194Ngo, A., Murphy, R.W., Liu, W.Z., Lathrop, A. & Orlov, N.L. (2006) The phylogenetic relationships of the Chinese and Vietnamese waterfall frogs of the genus Amolops. Amphibia-Reptilia, 27, 81–92.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/156853806776052010Orlov, N.L. & Ho, C.T. (2011) Two new species of cascade ranids of Amolops genus (Amphibia: Anura: Ranidae) from Lai Chau Province (northwest Vietnam). Russian Journal of Herpetology, 14, 211–228.
Pope, C.H. (1929) Four new frogs from Fukien Province, China. American Museum Novitates, 352, 1–5.
Pope, C.H. & Romer, J.D. (1951) A new Ranid frog (Staurois) from the colony of Hongkong. Fieldiana Zoology, 31, 609–612.
Rao, D.Q. & Wilkinson, J.A. (2007) A new species of Amolops (Anura: Ranidae) from southwest China. Copeia, 2007, 913–919.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1643/0045-8511(2007)7[913:ANSOAA]2.0.CO;2Ray, P. (1992) Two new hill-stream frogs of the genus Amolops Cope (Amphibia: Anura: Ranidae) from Uttar Pradesh (India). Indian Journal of Forestry, 15, 345–350.
Ronquist, F. & Huelsenbeck, J.P. (2003) MrBayes 3: Bayesian phylogenetic inference under mixed models. Bioinformatics, 19, 1572–1574.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btg180Rowley, J.L., Stuart, B.L., Neang, T., Hoang, H., Dau, V.Q., Nguyen, T.T. & Emmett, D.A. (2015) A new species of Leptolalax (Anura: Megophryidae) from Vietnam and Cambodia. Zootaxa, 4039 (3), 401–417.
http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4039.3.1Savage, J.M. (1997) Digital webbing formulae for anurans: a refinement. Herpetological Review, 28, 131.
Sengupta, S., Hussain, B., Choudhury, P.K., Gogoi, J., Ahmed, M.F. & Choudhury, N.K. (2008) A new species of Amolops (Anura: Ranidae) from Assam, north-eastern India. Hamadryad, 32, 5–12.
Smith, M.A. (1923) On a collection of reptiles and batrachians from the island of Hainan. Journal of the Natural History Society of Siam, 6, 195–212.
Smith, M.A. (1940) The amphibians and reptiles obtained by Mr. Ronald Kaulback in Upper Burma. Records of the Indian Museum, 42, 465–486.
Stuart, B.L., Bain, R.H., Phimmachak, S. & Spence, K. (2010) Phylogenetic systematics of the Amolops monticola group (Amphibia: Ranidae), with description of a new species from northwestern Laos. Herpetologica, 66, 52–66.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1655/08-073.1Sumida, M. & Ogata, M. (1998) Intraspecific differentiation in the Japanese brown frog Rana japonica inferred from mitochondrial DNA sequences of the cytochrome b gene. Zoological Science, 15, 989–1000.
http://dx.doi.org/10.2108/zsj.15.989Sun, G.Z., Luo, W.X., Sun, H.Y. & Zhang, G.Y. (2013) A new species of Cascade Frog from Tibet: China. Forestry Construction, 20, 14–16.
Tamura, K., Peterson, D., Peterson, N., Stecher, G., Nei, M. & Kumar, S. (2011) MEGA5: molecular evolutionary genetics analysis using maximum likelihood, evolutionary distance, and maximum parsimony methods. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 28, 2731–2739.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msr121Thompson, J.D., Gibson, T.J., Plewniak, F., Jeanmougin, F. & Higgins, D.G. (1997) The CLUSTAL_X windows interface: flexible strategies for multiple sequence alignment aided by quality analysis tools. Nucleic Acids Research, 25, 4876–4882.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/nar/25.24.4876Wang, Y.Y., Lau, M.W.N., Yang, J.H., Chen, G.L., Liu, Z.Y., Pang, H. & Liu, Y. (2015) A new species of the genus Odorrana (Amphibia: Ranidae) and the first record of Odorrana bacboensis from China. Zootaxa, 3999 (2), 235–254.
http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.3999.2.4Wu, G.F. & Tian, W.S. (1995) A new Amolops species from southern Yunnan. Sichuan Journal of Zoology (Supplement), Herpetological Series, 8, 50–52.
Wu, G.F. & Zhao, E.M. (1984) A rare karyotype of anurans, the karyotype of Rana phrynoides. Acta Herpetologica Sinica, 3, 29–32.
Yang, D.T., Su, C.Y. & Li, S.M. (1983) A study on amphibians and reptiles from the Hengduanshan Mountains of Yunnan. Acta Herpetologica Sinica, 2, 37–49.
Zhao, W.G., Rao, D.Q., Lv, S.Q. & Dong, B.J. (2004) Herpetological surveys of Xizang autonomous region2. Medog. Sichuan Journal of Zoology, 24, 250–253.