Abstract
Indirana salelkari , a new species of leaping frog, is described from Netravali, Goa, India. The species can be distinguished from its congeners by a combination of morphological characters, viz., head longer than wide, narrow and deep buccal cavity, vomerine teeth large and acutely placed close to each other, oval choanae, distinct canthus rostralis, first finger longer than or equal to second, presence of double outer palmer tubercles, elongated inner metatarsal tubercle, moderate webbing, discs of fingers and toes with crescentic deep marginal grooves restricted only to the anterior side of the discs, dorsal skin with glandular folds but without warts, ventral skin granular with some mottling on throat and, palms and soles dark brown. Indirana salelkari differs from its sister taxa, I. chiravasi , in the placement and structure of vomerine teeth and choanae. The new species is genetically distinct from I. chiravasi , with a genetic distance of 3.8% for the 16S rRNA gene. We also provide phylogentic placement of Indirana salelkari based on mitochondrial 12S and 16S ribosomal genes and nuclear rhodopsin gene along with molecular clock analysis, which further confirms its genetic distinctness from other related taxa.
Highlights
The genus Indirana Laurent, 1986, is characterized by small to moderate size, forked omosternum, vomerine teeth present behind the choanae, large nasal bones in contact with each other and fronto-parietals, clubbed metatarsus barely separated by webbing, presence of deeply notched tongue bearing a mid-ventral lingual papilla, Y-shaped terminal phalanges, and having specialized tadpoles adapted to terrestrial development (Laurent 1986)
Diagnosis: Indirana salelkari sp. nov. differs from all other congeners based on the following combination of characters: medium-sized frog (20.9–30.9 mm SUL), head longer than wide, distinct canthus rostralis, first finger longer than or equal to second, presence of double
Indirana salelkari sp. nov. is the twelfth species of the monogeneric family Ranixalidae, endemic to the Western Ghats of India
Summary
The genus Indirana Laurent, 1986, is characterized by small to moderate size, forked omosternum, vomerine teeth present behind the choanae, large nasal bones in contact with each other and fronto-parietals, clubbed metatarsus barely separated by webbing, presence of deeply notched tongue bearing a mid-ventral lingual papilla, Y-shaped terminal phalanges, and having specialized tadpoles adapted to terrestrial development (Laurent 1986). There are 11 known species in the genus, namely I. beddomii (Günther, 1876), I. brachytarsus (Günther, 1876), I. diplosticta (Günther, 1876), I. leptodactyla (Boulenger, 1882), I. phrynoderma (Boulenger, 1882), I. semipalmata (Boulenger, 1882), I. leithii (Boulenger, 1888), I. longicrus (Rao, 1937), I. tenuilingua (Rao, 1937), I. gundia (Dubois, 1986), and I. chiravasi Padhye et al (2014). Recent species and distributional delimitation based on molecular studies (Nair et al 2012; Modak et al 2014) and description of a new species in the genus (Padhye et al 2014) suggests that there are several undescribed species in the genus. During the field surveys in Goa region of the Western Ghats, we came across a population of Indirana which was found to be morphologically and genetically different from other known species of the genus.
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