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Zoological Research
Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
ISSN: 2095-8137
Vol. 37, No. 1, 2016, pp. 7-14
Bioline Code: zr16004
Full paper language: English
Document type: Research Article
Document available free of charge

Zoological Research, Vol. 37, No. 1, 2016, pp. 7-14

 en The Australasian frog family Ceratobatrachidae in China, Myanmar and Thailand: discovery of a new Himalayan forest frog clade
Yan, Fang; Jiang, Ke; Wang, Kai; Jin, Jie-Qiong; Suwannapoom, Chatmongkong; Li, Cheng; Vindum, Jens V.; Brown, Rafe M. & Che, Jing

Abstract

In an effort to study the systematic affinities and specieslevel phylogenetic relationships of the enigmatic anurans variably assigned to the genera Ingerana check for this species in other resources or Limnonectes check for this species in other resources (family Dicroglossidae check for this species in other resources ), we collected new molecular sequence data for five species including four Himalayan taxa, Limnonectes xizangensis, Lim. medogensis check for this species in other resources , Lim. alpina, Ingerana borealis and one southeast Asian species, I. tasanae check for this species in other resources , and analyzed these together with data from previous studies involving other ostensibly related taxa. Our surprising results demonstrate unequivocally that Lim. xizangensis, Lim. medogensis and Lim. alpina form a strongly supported clade, the sister-group of the family Australasian forest frog family Ceratobatrachidae. This discovery requires an expansion of the definition of Ceratobatrachidae and represents the first record of this family in China. These three species are distinguished from the species of Ingerana and Limnonectes by the: (1) absence of interdigital webbing of the foot, (2) absence of terminal discs on fingers and toes, (3) absence of circumarginal grooves on the fingers and toes, and (4) absence of tarsal folds. Given their phylogenetic and morphological distinctiveness, we assign them to the oldest available generic name for this clade, Liurana Dubois 1987, and transfer Liurana from Dicroglossidae to the family Ceratobatrachidae. In contrast, Ingerana tasanae was found to be clustered with strong support with the recently described genus Alcalus check for this species in other resources (Ceratobatrachidae), a small clade of otherwise Sundaic species; this constitutes a new record of the family Ceratobatrachidae for Myanmar and Thailand. Finally, Ingerana borealis clustered with the “true” Ingerana (family Dicroglossidae), for which the type species is I. tenasserimensis check for this species in other resources .

Keywords
Dicroglossidae; Himalaya; Liurana

 
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