Tadpole of the hylid frog Bokermannohyla gouveai (Peixoto & Cruz, 1992)

Abstract

The genus Bokermannohyla Faivovich, Haddad, Garcia, Frost, Campbell & Wheeler, 2005 currently comprises 29 species that are distributed in the Atlantic Forest and Cerrado biomes of Brazil (Faivovich et al. 2009; Frost 2010; Napoli & Pimenta 2009). This genus has recently been erected to accommodate the former Hyla circumdata, Hyla claresignata, Hyla martinsi, and Hyla pseudopseudis species groups (Faivovich et al. 2005). The Bokermannohyla circumdata group is composed by seventeen species (Table 1), all occurring mainly in mountain stream habitats in the Atlantic Rainforest, being the dark vertical stripes on the posterior surface of the thigh a putative morphological synapomorphy of this group (Heyer 1985). Despite the importance of larval characters for phylogenetic and taxonomic studies (e.g. Haas 2003), tadpoles of only seven species are formally described for this group (Table 1). Herein we describe the tadpole of B. gouveai known only from habitats above 1800 m (IUCN, 2010) in the Parque Nacional do Itatiaia, States of Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais, southeastern Brazil.