Discovery of a new species of Euphlyctis (Anura: Dicroglossidae) from the western coastal plains of peninsular India

Abstract

The aquatic frog genus ‘Euphlyctis’ is now considered under two separate genera- Euphlyctis Fitzinger and Phrynoderma Fitzinger, with four valid species in each genus, respectively. The current distribution range of the genus Phrynoderma is restricted to peninsular India and Bangladesh, with a probability of availability in Sri Lanka. The genus Euphlyctis has a wide range of distribution from the Arabian Peninsula and the South Asian countries, with a few historical descriptions treated as junior synonyms of the species Euphlyctis cyanophlyctis in India. A new species of skittering frog, Euphlyctis jaladhara sp. nov. is described here from the surroundings of the Thattekad Bird Sanctuary of Kerala, India, which has a predominant distribution in the western coastal plains of peninsular India and some parts of the Western Ghats. The new species has distinct morphological characters and a high genetic distance that distinguishes it from the sympatric species. Discussions are made concerning the validity of the species E. ghoshi and E. kalasgramensis.

New distribution record of Kerala Skittering frog, Euphlyctis kerala (Amphibia: Anura), from Kerala, India

“…3). The cluster again confirms the existence of two separate lineages (Dinesh et al 2022), first lineage consists of E. kerala, E. aloysii, E. hexadactyla, and E. karaavali and the second consists of E. jaladhara, E. cyanophlyctis, E. ehrenbergii, and E. kalasgramensis. Pair-wise genetic distance varied ≤ 1% from the reference samples, confirming the identity of our frogs as E. kerala and had a genetic distance of 4.6% from the closest congener (E. aloysii) as in Dinesh et al (2021) (Table 2).…”

“…This frog is associated with freshwater ecosystems, especially ponds close to river tributaries (e.g., the Periyar River) at lower elevations (Frost 2021). Sister species include E. aloysii and E. karaavali from western coastal regions and E. hexadactyla from eastern coastal regions of India (Dinesh et al 2022). A medium-sized frog, E. kerala is closely related and morphologically very similar to E. aloysii, but the ranges differ (Dinesh et al 2021).…”

Confirmed report of the Aniqiao Torrent Frog, Amolops aniqiaoensis (Anura: Ranidae), from India, with additional distributional records for two other Indian pecies of Amolops

“…This report from Upper Subansiri District of Arunachal Pradesh, the first confirmed report of this species from India and the first record other than the type locality at Aniqiao, Table 1. Morphometric data (as in Dinesh et al 2022) of the specimens of torrent frogs (Amolops spp.) used in this study.…”

Conservation status of anamniotes reported from Khanwari pond of district Kaushambi (U.P.), India

“…The fishes and amphibians were caught and collected for present survey from Khanwari pond by hand-nets, gill nets, cast nets, hooks, drag nets with the help of local people and animal catchers. Fishes were identified using the standard keys of Day (1989) [4] , Jhingran (1991) [9] , Srivastava (1998) [18] , and Jayaram (1999) [8] while amphibians by Dutta (2017) [6] and Dinesh et al (2017) [5] . Study was aided by literature of Wheeler (1998) [28] and Daniel (2002) [3] .…”