A new species of small tree frog from a primary montane tropical forest of central Vietnam, Tay Nguyen Plateau, is described based on morphological, molecular, and acoustic evidence. The Golden Bug-Eyed Frog, Theloderma auratum sp. nov., is distinguishable from its congeners and other small rhacophorid species based on a combination of the following morphological attributes: (1) bony ridges on head absent; (2) smooth skin completely lacking calcified warts or asperities; (3) pointed elongated tapering snout; (4) vocal opening in males absent; (5) vomerine teeth absent; (6) males of small body size (SVL 21.8–26.4 mm); (7) head longer than wide; ED/SVL ratio 13%–15%; ESL/SVL ratio 16%–20%; (8) small tympanum (TD/EL ratio 50%–60%) with few tiny tubercles; (9) supratympanic fold absent; (10) ventral surfaces completely smooth; (11) webbing between fingers absent; (12) outer and inner metacarpal tubercles present, supernumerary metacarpal tubercle single, medial, oval in shape; (13) toes half-webbed: I 2–2¼ II 1½–2¾ III 2–3¼ IV 3–1½ V; (14) inner metatarsal tubercle present, oval; outer metatarsal tubercle absent; (15) iris bicolored; (16) dorsal surfaces golden-yellow with sparse golden-orange speckling or reticulations and few small dark-brown spots; (17) lateral sides of head and body with wide dark reddish-brown to black lateral stripes, clearly separated from lighter dorsal coloration by straight contrasting edge; (18) ventral surfaces of body, throat, and chest greyish-blue with indistinct brown confluent blotches; (19) upper eyelids with few (3–5) very small flat reddish superciliary tubercles; (20) limbs dorsally reddish-brown, ventrally brown with small bluish-white speckles. The new species is also distinct from all congeners in 12S rRNA to 16S rRNA mitochondrial DNA fragment sequences (uncorrected genetic distance P>8.9%). Advertisement call and tadpole morphology of the new species are described. Our molecular data showed Theloderma auratum sp. nov. to be a sister species of Th. palliatum from Langbian Plateau in southern Vietnam.

Caucasian rock lizards of the genus is a unique taxa, including both bisexual and parthenogenetic species. The parthenogenetic species have originated as a result of natural hybridisation between females and males of different bisexual species. The species involved in interspecific hybridisation are called parental. However, sympatric zones (SZ) of unisexual and bisexual rock lizards of the Caucasus are still poorly studied, although they are very important for understanding the role of hybrid individuals of different origin in reticulate evolution. This paper presents the location of the SZs of parthenogenetic and their parental bisexual rock lizards of the genus Darevskia in Armenia and adjacent territories of Georgia and Nagorno-Karabakh. We summarised the locations of the SZs identified from 1957 to the present, based on our field survey data gathered in 2018-2019 and records from publications and museum collections. This dataset includes 39 SZs of three types: SZ of parental bisexual species, SZ of parental species with unisexual species and SZ of the parthenogenetic species. For each zone, species composition, geographical and altitudinal distribution are presented. New records expand our knowledge of the geographical and altitudinal distribution of SZs in these species and provide additional data for understanding the mechanisms of reticulate evolution and hybridogeneous speciation in the past, present and future. The new records, including geographical and altitudinal distributions of three types of SZs, are presented, which expand the previously-known list to 39 locations of contact zones for parthenogenetic and its bisexual parental species of rock lizards of the genus Darevskia in Armenia and the adjacent territories of Georgia and Nagorno-Karabakh.

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We describe a new species of the Rhacophorus genus, which differs from its congeners on the basis of a combination of the following morphological characters: (1) medium body size (SVL of adult female — 50.4 mm); (2) head slightly wider than long (HW/HL 1.01); (3) HW/SVL 0.35; (4) HL/SVL 0.35; (5) third finger disk diameter much smaller than tympanum diameter (FTD/TD 0.70); (6) tympanum large, the lower edge of the tympanic annulus almost reaches the edge of the upper lip (TJ/TD 0.27, TJ/OJ 0.48, TJ/NJ 0.39); (7) high ratio TD/ED 0.73; (8) ratio TFL/FLL2 1.62; (9) vomerine odontophores oblique, and widely separated, between choanae (gap is equal to the length of one odontophore), touching anterior edge of choanae, vomerine teeth well developed; (10) triangular calcar absent; (11) color pattern of dorsal surface of head, body, shoulders, forearms, thighs, and shanks looks like a cross-connection between adjacent channels, tubes, fibers and other parts of a network of two general kinds of color: of reddish-brown and beige with small sparsely arranged individual black spots; (12) ventral surfaces of belly, throat, chest, femur and all forelimbs light gray, on the throat, chest and femur pigmentation is somewhat much intensive; (13) belly, throat and chest are smooth; (14) pair of tubercles ventrolaterally from the cloacal opening absent; (15) iris is brown; (16) fingers-webbing formula: I2+ – 3II12/3 – 21/2III2+ – 2IV; (17) toes-webbing formula: I11/2 – 2II1 – 2+III1+ – 21/2IV2+ – 1+V. At present, Rhacophorus trangdinhensis sp. nov. is known only by a single specimen (female) from the type locality in an evergreen forest on limestone karst from 200 m a.s.l. elevation.

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