Abstract
This study describes a new species of the genus Leptobrachella, Leptobrachella suiyangensissp. 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 Leptobrachella contains 75 species, 21 of which are found in China, including seven species reported from Guizhou Province. The uncorrected sequence divergence percentage between Leptobrachella suiyangensissp. 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.
Highlights
The genus Leptolalax Dubois, 1983 in the family Megophryidae Bonaparte, 1850 is regarded to be closely associated with the genus Leptobrachella Smith, 1925 and has been assigned as a synonym of the genus Leptobrachella based on a large-scale molecular analysis (Chen et al 2018)
Acoustic data, and molecular divergence, we described the specimens as a new species
The smallest pairwise genetic divergence between the population from Suiyang County and all other species of the genus Leptobrachella is 4.71%. This indicates that there is substantial genetic divergence between the species in Leptobrachella and the specimens from Suiyang County, indicating that this new population can be regarded to be a separate lineage and is valid to be described as a new species as below
Summary
The genus Leptolalax Dubois, 1983 in the family Megophryidae Bonaparte, 1850 is regarded to be closely associated with the genus Leptobrachella Smith, 1925 and has been assigned as a synonym of the genus Leptobrachella based on a large-scale molecular analysis (Chen et al 2018). Acoustic data, and molecular divergence, we described the specimens as a new species
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