A new species of Pristimantis (Amphibia, Anura, Strabomantidae) from the Pui Pui Protected Forest (central Peru), with comments on Pristimantis albertus Duellman & Hedges, 2007

Abstract

We describe a new Pristimantis species from the eastern Andes, Región Junín, Peru following an integrative taxonomic approach. The description is based on three adult males (snout-vent length 25.7–28.8 mm) collected in two montane forests between 1615 and 1800 m a.s.l. in the Pui Pui Protected Forest and its close surroundings. The new species is mainly characterised by absence of tympanum, presence of inner tarsal fold, broad horizontal red band across iris, ventre mottled black and cream and ventral surfaces of thighs salmon and grey mottled. Amongst the Amazonian and montane forest Pristimantis that have the ventre and groin contrastingly black and cream mottled, P. sinschisp. nov. is morphologically most similar to P. lindae and P. ventrimarmoratus. However, DNA barcoding revealed a clear distinction between these three species and placed P. sinschisp. nov. as sister taxon of P. lindae. We designate a lectotype for P. ventrimarmoratus and restrict the type locality of this species to “El Topo, R. Pastaza, [Provincia Tungurahua,] E. Ecuador, 4200 feet”. Pristimantis albertus and P. sagittulus are recorded for the first time in the Región Junín. Additional data on morphology and systematics are provided for P. albertus.

A new cryptic species of the Pristimantis lacrimosus group (Anura, Strabomantidae) from the eastern slopes of the Ecuadorian Andes

“…However, genetic and morphological evidence demonstrated that "P. calcarulatus" was a complex of three different species, each with a small distribution range. Similar results have been found within "P. orestes", "P. ornatissimus" (Guayasamin et al 2017;Urgiles et al 2019), and P. ventrimarmoratus (Moravec et al 2020). It is unclear if species of Andean Pristimantis with large distributions (> 10000 km 2 ) actually exist.…”

“…Guayasamin et al 2015;Páez and Ron 2019). Taxonomic problems in Pristimantis are still pervasive and are still far from being fully resolved (e.g., Páez and Ron 2019;Reyes-Puig et al 2019;Moravec et al 2020).…”

A New Species of Terrestrial-Breeding Frog, Genus Pristimantis (Anura: Strabomantidae), from the Peruvian Yungas of Central Peru

“…However, the accumulation curve of described species is far from reaching saturation. The number of new species of Pristimantis described in the Cordillera Oriental of central Peru has reached 34 species in the last two decades [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] and the amount of information of each described species is constantly improving [10,14,17]. However, most species are currently known from few specimens and localities (e.g., P. adiastolus Duellman and Hedges, 2007, P. aniptopalmatus, P. eurydactylus Hedges and Schlüter, 1992, P. boucephalus Lehr, Moravec, Cusi, and Gvoždík, 2017, P. minutulus Duellman and Hedges, 2007, and P. rhabdocnemus Duellman and Hedges, 2005).…”

“…Compared to other species of Pristimantis from the Cordillera Oriental of central Peru, the new species is most similar to the sympatric P. albertus. Both species were common at the type locality, are similar in size (SVL 12.9-15.6 mm in males and 17.6-19.3 mm in females of P. clarae versus 12.9-19.5 in males and 19.7-24.2 in females of P. albertus; Duellman and Lehr [2], Moravec, Lehr and Kodejs [17]), and share the presence of dorsolateral folds. Moreover, both species belong to the P. danae species group.…”

“…The addition of seven species of Pristimantis in the Andes of central Peru since Blair Hedges collected in the cloud forest of Pasco in 1987 suggests that this region harbors a high diversity of strabomantid frogs [6,7]. Subsequently, several collections carried out in the montane forests near Huánuco, Oxapampa, Pampa Hermosa, Huasawasi, Paucartambo, Yanachaga Chémillen National Park, Pui Pui Protected Forest and the remote Cordillera del Sira led to the discovery of 34 new species of Pristimantis [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]. These trends suggest that the number of species of Pristimantis in the Peruvian Yungas of central Peru is far from reaching saturation.…”