Abstract
A new species of the frog genus Rana sensu lato from Wuyi Mountain, Fujian Province, China is described. Molecular phylogenetic analyses clustered the new species into the R.johnsi group and indicated that it was genetically divergent from its closely related species. The new species could be distinguished from its congeners by a combination of the following characters: body size medium, SVL 41.4–45.6 mm (42.9 ± 1.9 mm, n = 4) in adult males and 47.6–50.3 mm (n = 2) in adult females; adult male with a pair of internal subgular vocal sacs; lateroventral grooves present on tip of toes; webbing on fourth toes reaching the tip of toe; transverse skin ridges distinctly present on the dorsal surface of thigh and tibia, the number large (mean 26.5 ± 2.7, range 22–29, n = 6); breeding males possess creamy white nuptial pad with tiny velvety spines on the dorsal surface of the first finger, divided into three parts.
Highlights
The brown frog genus Rana sensu lato Linnaeus, 1758 (Anura, Ranidae Batsch, 1796) is broadly distributed across Eurasia, Indochina, and North America (Frost 2021)
The R. johnsi group was strongly supported as a monophyletic group containing all samples of R. johnsi, R. sangzhiensis, R. zhengi, and the undescribed species
Samples of R. sangzhiensis and R. zhengi were nested into a clade, which was weakly clustered as the sister of the undescribed species clade
Summary
The brown frog genus Rana sensu lato Linnaeus, 1758 (Anura, Ranidae Batsch, 1796) is broadly distributed across Eurasia, Indochina, and North America (Frost 2021). In the genus Rana sensu lato, 26 species have been recorded in China (Jiang et al 2020; Wang et al 2020; Frost 2021), which are R. amurensis Boulenger, 1886, R. arvalis Nilsson, 1842, R. asiatica Bedriaga, 1898, R. chaochiaoensis Liu, 1946, R. chensinensis David, 1875, R. chevronta Hu & Ye, 1978, R. coreana Okada, 1928, R. culaiensis Li, Lu, & Li, 2008, R. dabieshanensis Wang, Qian, Zhang, Guo, Pan, Wu, Wang, & Zhang, 2017, R. dybowskii Günther, 1876, R. hanluica Shen, Jiang, & Yang, 2007, R. huanrenensis Fei, Ye, & Huang, 1990, R. jiemuxiensis Yan, Jiang, Chen, Fang, Jin, Li, Wang, Murphy, Che, & Zhang, 2011, R. jiulingensis Wan, Lyu, & Wang, 2020, R. johnsi Smith, 1921, R. kukunoris Nikolskii, 1918, R. longicrus Stejneger, 1898, R. luanchuanensis Zhao & Yuan, 2017, R. maoershanensis Lu, Li, & Jiang, 2007, R. omeimontis Ye & Fei, 1993, R. sangzhiensis Shen, 1986, R. sauteri Boulenger, 1909, R. shuchinae Liu, 1950, R. weiningensis Liu, Hu, & Yang, 1962, R. zhengi Zhao, 1999, and R. zhenhaiensis Ye, Fei, & Matsui, 1995 Recent research on this genus discovered several new species from China (Yan et al 2011; Yuan et al 2016; Wang et al 2017; Yang et al 2017; Zhao et al 2017), indicating that the diversity of the genus is probably underestimated
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