Abstract
We describe a new species of Leucostethus from Gorgona Island, a small (13 km2) island located 35 km from the Pacific coast of southern Colombia. The new species most resembles L.argyrogaster and L.fugax from western Amazonia at 340–870 m elev. in Peru and Ecuador, with which it shares pale ventral coloration and orange suffusion of the axilla, groin and concealed surfaces of the hind limb, but it is most closely related to L.bilsa from ca. 340 km SW in the southern Chocó at 420–515 m elev., northwestern Ecuador. We report miniscule white spots on the posteroventral surface of the thighs of the new species and, on the basis of our preliminary assessment of their taxonomic distribution, hypothesize that their presence is a synapomorphy of Dendrobatoidea with subsequent losses in a few groups. Given the apparent restriction of the new species to Gorgona Island, it is Vulnerable according to IUCN Red List criteria. In addition to naming the new species, we also propose the following new combinations: L.alacris (Rivero and Granados-Díaz, 1990) comb. nov., L.dysprosium (Rivero and Serna, 2000) comb. nov., and L.yaguara (Rivero and Serna, 1991) comb. nov.
Highlights
Gorgona Island, located approximately 35 km from the Pacific coast of southern Colombia (Giraldo 2012), is a fragment of the Caribbean Large Igneous Province that formed in the Late Cretaceous and accreted to South America in the Eocene (Serrano et al 2011)
We describe a new species of Leucostethus from Gorgona Island, a small (13 km2) island located 35 km from the Pacific coast of southern Colombia
We report miniscule white spots on the posteroventral surface of the thighs of the new species and, on the basis of our preliminary assessment of their taxonomic distribution, hypothesize that their presence is a synapomorphy of Dendrobatoidea with subsequent losses in a few groups
Summary
Gorgona Island, located approximately 35 km from the Pacific coast of southern Colombia (Giraldo 2012), is a fragment of the Caribbean Large Igneous Province that formed in the Late Cretaceous and accreted to South America in the Eocene (Serrano et al 2011). Several putative endemics have been discovered on Gorgona, including species of Chelicerata (Lourenço and Flores 1989), Formicidae (Fernández and Guerrero 2008), Orthoptera (Montealegre-Z and Postiles 2010; Montealegre-Z et al 2011; Baena-Bejarano and Heads 2015), and Psocodea (García Aldrete et al 2011; Sarria-S et al 2014; Manchola et al 2014), it is not uncommon for subsequent research to uncover species named from Gorgona on the mainland The putative endemics include the catfish Trichomycterus gorgona Fernández & Schaefer, 2005, the anoles Anolis gorgonae Barbour, 1909 and A. medemi Ayala & Williams, 1988 (Phillips et al 2019), the snake Atractus medusa Passos et al, 2009, and an undescribed species of dendrobatid frog reported as “Colostethus sp. The objective of the present paper is to formally name and describe this new species
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
