A new golden frog species of the genus Diasporus (Amphibia, Eleutherodactylidae) from the Cordillera Central, western Panama

Abstract

We describe the frog species Diasporus citrinobapheus sp. n. from the Cordillera Central of western Panama. The new species differs from all other species in its genus in coloration, disk cover and disk pad shape, skin texture, advertisement call, and size. It is most similar to Diasporus tigrillo, from which it differs in dorsal skin texture, relative tibia length, number of vomerine teeth, ventral coloration, dorsal markings, and relative tympanum size, and to Diasporus gularis, from which it can be distinguished by the lack of membranes between the toes, adult size, posterior thigh coloration, and position of the choanae. We provide data on morpho- logy, vocalization, and distribution of the new species, as well as brief information on its natural history.

Multiple lines of evidence support the species status of the poorly known Diasporus tigrillo and the recently described Diasporus citrinobapheus (Anura: Eleutherodactylidae)

“…Detailed molecular laboratory techniques and GenBank Accession numbers for these 21 sequences are provided in Hertz et al [10] We used an additional 16S sequence of Eleutherodactylus coqui Thomas 1966 as an outgroup following the relationships within Brachycephaloidea [11] (GenBank Accession Number: EF107219). An alignment was performed in MUSCLE 3.7 [23] and checked by eye.…”

“…Email: garciar.adrian@gmail.com species are crucial in order to disentangle taxonomy, shed light on species boundaries, and quantify the real diversity contained in a taxon. [14,15] Recently, Hertz et al [10] described Diasporus citrinobapheus, a new species of the genus from Cordillera Central in Western Panama, and according to them, a close relative of D. tigrillo. Considering the importance of advertisement calls as a mechanism of premating isolation and its consequent utility as taxonomic character, [16,17] these authors also provided a preliminary acoustic analysis for some species of the genus.…”

“…[7][8][9][10][11] However, body size variability, advertisement call divergence, and polychromatism within species of the genus suggest that species with high degree of morphological similarity may be masked under some nominal species. [12] In order to address the issue of a potential underestimation of the real diversity of the genus, an integrative approach compiling different lines of evidence seems strictly necessary.…”

A checklist of the amphibians and reptiles of San Isidro de Dota, Reserva Forestal Los Santos, Costa Rica

“…Lower Central America represents one of the regions with the highest number of amphibians described in the Neotropics in relation to the area it represent (Savage 2002;Boza-Oviedo et al 2012;Hertz et al 2012). Much of this richness of species is associated with the Cordillera de Talamanca, site of speciation and dispersion center of several species (Streicher et al 2009;Chaves et al 2009;Boza-Oviedo et al 2012).…”

Advertisement Calls of Two Horned Frogs,Megophrys kuatunensisandM. huangshanensis, from China (Anura, Megophryidae)

“…For accurate recognition, calls of each species must differ from those of the other sympatric species (Wollerman and Wiley, 2002). Various studies have shown that the advertisement call represents a premating isolating mechanism in anurans (Duellman and Trueb, 1986;Hoskin et al, 2005), which makes it a valuable tool in taxonomy (Matsui, 2006;Matsui et al, 2009;Hertz et al, 2012).…”