Abstract
A new species of shrub frog Raorchestes ghatei is described from the Western Ghats of Maharashtra. The species differs from its congeners based on a combination of characters including small to medium-sized adult males, snout mucronate in dorsal view, canthus rostralis angular and sharp, snout slightly projecting beyond mouth ventrally, tympanum indistinct and one third of the eye diameter, tongue without papilla but with a lingual pit, nuptial pad rudimentary to absent, a bony tubercle on humerus at the end of deltoid ridge present in males and absent in females, skin finely granulated or smooth dorsally, lateral side marbled with white blotches on brown to black background. Molecular phylogeny based on 16S rRNA gene sequence suggests that the new species is genetically distinct and forms a monophyletic clade within Raorchestes. The species exhibits sexual dimorphism with males having single sub-gular vocal sac and a tubercle on the humerus while females lack them. The species shows direct development. The species is widely distributed in the Western Ghats of Maharashtra.
Highlights
The Western Ghats of India harbors a rich diversity of amphibians with high levels of endemism (Dinesh & Radhakrishnan 2011)
In this communication, based on morphological and molecular analysis, we describe a new species of shrub frog and show that the populations of the Raorchestes from Satara District and Pune District, earlier reported as R. bombayensis are those of the new species
Annandale (1919) described Ixalus bombayensis (= Raorchestes bombayensis) from Castle Rock, and mentioned that the species is more common in Khas (= Kaas) in Satara and Khandalla (= Khandala) in Poona (= Pune)
Summary
The Western Ghats of India harbors a rich diversity of amphibians with high levels of endemism (Dinesh & Radhakrishnan 2011). Annandale (1919) described Ixalus bombayensis (= Raorchestes bombayensis) from Castle Rock and mentioned that the species is present in Khas (= Kaas) in Satara and Khandalla (= Khandala) in Poona (= Pune). In this communication, based on morphological and molecular analysis, we describe a new species of shrub frog and show that the populations of the Raorchestes from Satara District and Pune District, earlier reported as R. bombayensis are those of the new species. We further show that the character of tubercle on the humeral bone, which was previously thought as a specific character of R. tuberohumerus (Kuramoto & Joshy, 2003), is a sexually dimorphic character possessed by males but not by females
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