A new species of Salamander (Caudata, Plethodontidae, Bolitoglossa) from Serranía de los Yariguíes, Colombia

Abstract

A new species of Bolitoglossa (Plethodontidae) is described from Andean cloud forests on the western slope of Serranía de los Yariguíes in the Cordillera Oriental of Colombia. This new species is distinguished from all other species of the Bolitoglossa adspersa species group by differences in adult body size, morphometric proportions, and tooth counts. The validity of the new species is also supported by molecular analyses. This new species increases the number of salamander species in Colombia to 23 and highlights the Cordillera Oriental of Colombia, with 11 species, as the region with the highest diversity of Bolitoglossa in South America.

Vastly underestimated species richness of Amazonian salamanders (Plethodontidae: Bolitoglossa) and implications about plethodontid diversification

“…We combined Central America and Mesoamerica into a single region, hereafter Central America, as we were not investigating biogeographic events between those two regions. To separate South American species into Amazonian, Andean, and Chocoan, we compiled data of the distribution and elevation ranges for all South American species from the IUCN's web page, new data published here, and recent taxonomic and species descriptions (Brcko et al, 2013;Acevedo et al, 2013;Meza-Joya et al, 2017). Based on the elevation ranges plot (Fig.…”

A new Bolitoglossa (Amphibia, Caudata, Plethodontidae) from the Cordillera Oriental of Colombia

“…These two species are close geographically and their genetic uncorrected p-distance for the 16S and cyt b (7.0%) fragments were relatively low (2.1 and 7%, respectively). Yet, lower distances between morphologically well-defined sister species of Bolitoglossa have been previously reported (Batista et al 2014;Meza-Joya et al 2017), with the smallest divergence reaching 0.5% for 16S (Parra-Olea et al 2004). In addition, species delimitation analyses provided support to the distinctiveness of B. muisca as a new species.…”

“…Colombia currently has 24 species ( Frost 2023 ), of which only seven have been described in this century, while the remainder are descriptions prior to 1973 ( Frost 2023 ). As for the phylogenetic relationships for the species of the country, little is known; there are some works that include species distributed in the Colombian Amazon ( Cusi et al 2020 ; Jaramillo et al 2020 ), as well as phylogenies presented in the most recent descriptions of species in the country ( Acevedo et al 2013 ; Meza-Joya et al 2017 ).…”

“…The genus Bolitoglossa has its highest diversity in the Cordillera Oriental ( Meza-Joya et al 2017 ), where a total of 11 species have been described: B. adspersa (Peters, 1863), B.…”

Dos nuevas especies de árboles molinillo (Magnolia: Magnoliaceae) de la Serranía de los Yariguíes, departamento de Santander, Colombia

“…Recientes inventarios biológicos en la región han arrojado más de una decena de especies nuevas de plantas, entre las que se encuentran un nuevo género de la familia Asteraceae (Díaz-Piedrahita y Rodríguez-Cabeza, 2011, 2012, así como una nueva especie de salamandra (Meza-Joya et al, 2017), una nueva subespecie de ave (Donegan y Avendaño, 2010) y media docena de nuevas especies de mariposas (Huertas y Donegan, 2006;Huertas y Arias, 2007). En el presente trabajo se describen dos novedades de plantas encontradas en exploraciones de la serranía, en el marco de los proyectos de restauración ecológica a cargo de Parques Nacionales de Colombia y de Conservación de Magnolias para Colombia del Instituto de Investigación de Recursos Biológicos Alexander von Humboldt.…”