A distinctive new species of moss salamander (Caudata: Plethodontidae: Nototriton) from an imperiled Honduran endemism hotspot

Zootaxa ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 2434 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOSIAH H. TOWNSEND ◽  
J. MICHAEL BUTLER ◽  
LARRY DAVID WILSON ◽  
JAMES D. AUSTIN

A new species of Nototriton is described from Refugio de Vida Silvestre Texiguat in northern Honduras, and is presented in a new phylogenetic hypothesis for the genus Nototriton. This species differs from all other congeners by a number of morphological characteristics, including but not limited to large nares, syndactylous hands and feet with pointed toe tips, and a pale ventral surface with light mottling. Mitochondrial sequence divergence distinguishes this species from all other Nototriton (3.6–6.0% at 16S and 10.2–15.1% at cytochrome b). Refugio de Vida Silvestre Texiguat harbors a remarkable herpetofauna, including 20% of all endemic amphibian and reptile species in Honduras, among which are five species (one anuran, one lizard, and three snakes) known only from the immediate vicinity of the type locality of the new species. Despite the evolutionary and conservation importance of this reserve, it remains one of the most imperiled cloud forests in Honduras due to persistent illegal logging and forest clearing.

Zootaxa ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 4457 (1) ◽  
pp. 93 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROMAN A. NAZAROV ◽  
DANIEL A. MELNIKOV ◽  
MEHDI RADJABIZADEH ◽  
NIKOLAY A. POYARKOV

In the present study we provide evidence for the validity of the genus Trigonodactylus Hass, 1957, improve the diagnosis for this genus and describe a new species that belongs to it—Trigonodactylus persicus sp. nov., from the sand dunes in Khuzestan Province, southwestern Iran. The new species is closely related to Trigonodactylus [Stenodactylus] arabicus sensu Hass, and can be distinguished by the following morphological characteristics: small size, maximum SVL 34 mm; SVL/TailL—approximately 1:1; ventral scales roundish, weakly keeled, 54–61 longitudinal rows at midbody and 190–25 along midbody. No enlarged postmentals. Fingers and toes slightly flattened dorso-ventrally. Lateral edge of digits fringed by series of projecting triangular scales. No web between digits. No preanal and femoral pores. Dorsal color pattern formed by thin, dark, irregular vermicular patches and spots. Sometimes these dark dorsal patterns blend with each other and form transverse bands. There is a narrow, dark, longitudinal line between forelimbs and hindlimbs on lateral sides. Dark, well developed ʌ-shaped marking on snout, which continues behind orbit on tympanum region, approaches the upper ear opening and ends on the pectoral arch. Labial scales white, in some cases with grey-brown dots. Dorsal surfaces of limbs and digits with irregular dark bands. Dorsal surface of tail with 8–10 wide, dark brown bands with irregular margins, same size as alternating light bands. Ventral surface of body and limbs white, tail with dark spots that become more distinct posteriorly.


Zootaxa ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 2567 (1) ◽  
pp. 57 ◽  
Author(s):  
JODI J. L. ROWLEY ◽  
BRYAN L. STUART ◽  
NEANG THY ◽  
DAVID A. EMMETT

We describe a new species of megophryid frog in the genus Leptolalax from the Kon Tum Plateau in northeastern Cambodia. Leptolalax melicus sp. nov. is distinguished from its congeners by a combination of an off-white to pale pink ventral surface with diffuse dark brown blotches and distinct white speckling, finger I < II, an absence of webbing and dermal fringes on fingers, slight basal webbing and no dermal fringes on toes, body size (19.5–22.7 mm for seven adult males), an absence of ventrolateral glandular lines, dorsum mostly smooth with no skin ridges, and a unique advertisement call consisting of a single long introductory note containing 8–50 pulses, followed by 3–11 predominantly single-pulsed notes, and with an average dominant frequency of 3560–3610 Hz. Leptolalax melicus can be further distinguished from the morphologically similar L. applebyi in having more distinct dorsal patterning, and significantly larger pectoral and femoral glands. Leptolalax melicus and L. applebyi also differ by 6.1% sequence divergence at the 16S mtDNA gene. All specimens of L. melicus were found near rocky streams in evergreen forest between 650–850 m elevation. We suggest the new species should be considered Data Deficient following IUCN’s Red List categories.


Zootaxa ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 2796 (1) ◽  
pp. 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
JODI J. L. ROWLEY ◽  
DUONG THI THUY LE ◽  
DAO THI ANH TRAN ◽  
HUY DUC HOANG

We describe a new species of small megophryid frog from the Langbian Plateau in southern Vietnam, the southernmost record of Leptolalax from Vietnam. Leptolalax bidoupensis sp. nov. is distinguished from its congeners by a combination of a dark brownish red ventral surface with white speckling on entire ventral surface including throat, arms and legs, small size (23.6–24.6 mm in four adult males and 29.2–29.4 mm in two adult females), bicoloured iris (coppery red upper half, fading to pale silver ventrally), a mostly smooth skin texture with no skin ridges, and relatively short tibia (male TIB:SVL 0.44–0.46). The male advertisement call of the new species, consisting of 6–9 single-pulsed notes with a dominant frequency of 1.9–3.8 kHz, is also unique among Leptolalax species for which calls are known. From the morphologically similar L. applebyi and L. melicus, L. bidoupensis sp. nov. differs by 9.3% and 9.6% sequence divergence at the 16S mtDNA gene. At present, the new species is known from montane evergreen forest between 1620–1730 m elevation, within an area of 1 km 2 . We suggest the species should be considered Data Deficient following IUCN’s Red List categories.


Zootaxa ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4563 (1) ◽  
pp. 135 ◽  
Author(s):  
BENNY K.K. CHAN ◽  
SE-JONG JU ◽  
SE-JOO KIM

A new species of eolepadid stalked barnacle, Vulcanolepas fijiensis sp. nov., was collected from a hydrothermal vent in the North Fiji Basin, Southwestern Pacific Ocean, at a depth of 1988 m. Based on morphological characteristics, this new species was distinguished from its relatives, V. osheai Buckeridge, 2000, V. parensis Southward, 2005, V. scotiaensis Buckeridge, Linse & Jackson, 2013, and V. buckeridgei Chan & Chang, 2018. Based on morphological characteristics, Vulcanolepas species are divided mainly into two groups by the size of the first mandibular tooth; the first group has a large mandibular first tooth (V. parensis, V. scotiaensis, and V. fijiensis sp. nov., the second a small mandibular first tooth (V. osheai and V. buckeridgei). The new species can be easily distinguished from V. parensis and V. scotiaensis by the length ratio of antenniform segments to robust segments of the rami of cirrus I. Vulcanolepas fijiensis sp. nov. also differs from V. parensis by the length ratio of the penis and cirrus VI (1/10 vs 1/4), and the extension the carinal apex to the tergum (extended vs not extended). Additionally, the sequence divergence of the cytochrome c oxidase 1 gene between V. fijiensis sp. nov. and the other neolepadid species (except V. parensis from its original locations) ranged from 4.2% to 14.0%. In a neighbor-joining tree, V. fijiensis sp. nov. formed an independent branch. These results infer that V. fijiensis sp. nov. is a new species, distinct from the other known neolepadids. 


Zootaxa ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 4816 (4) ◽  
pp. 491-526 ◽  
Author(s):  
TIAN-YU QIAN ◽  
XIN XIA ◽  
YUE CAO ◽  
NENG-WEN XIAO ◽  
DAO-DE YANG

A new species of Leptobrachella, Leptobrachella wulingensis sp. nov. is described based on specimens collected from the Wuling mountains in Hunan Province, China. The new species can be distinguished from its congeners by a combination of having a SVL body size range of 24.5–32.8 mm in four adult males and 29.9–38.5 mm in three adult females; dorsal surface brown to reddish brown with indistinct markings; ventral surface creamy white, often with pale brown speckling on chest and margins; flanks with small to moderate black spots; skin on dorsum shagreened with sparse large warts, sometimes with short longitudinal ridges; toes with rudimentary webbing and narrow lateral fringes; dermal ridges under toes interrupted at the articulations; and iris bicolored with a bright orange or golden upper half, fading to silver in the lower half. Uncorrected sequence divergence between L. wulingensis sp. nov. and homologous 16S rRNA sequences available for all known species in the genus are ≥ 2.3%–2.9%. 


Zootaxa ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 2488 (1) ◽  
pp. 22 ◽  
Author(s):  
PERRY L. WOOD JR ◽  
L. LEE GRISMER ◽  
JESSE L. GRISMER ◽  
THY NEANG ◽  
THOU CHAV ◽  
...  

A new species of Acanthosaura (Gray 1831), A. cardamomensis sp. nov. from eastern Thailand and western Cambodia is described based on having a combination of unique morphological characteristics. It most closely resembles A. crucigera but differs in having significantly longer postorbital spines, occipital spines, nuchal spines, and dorsal spines; more scales between the fifth canthals; longer maximum dorsal scale length; longer maximum nuchal scale length; a significantly smaller diastema between the nuchal and dorsal crest spines; and significantly more supralabials. Mitochondrial DNA was used to calculate percent sequence divergence between samples of A. crucigera from southern Myanmar and western Thailand and samples of A. cardamomensis sp. nov. from eastern Thailand and western Cambodia. The uncorrected pairwise sequence divergence between populations of A. cardamomensis ranged from 1.2– 3.1% and the range between populations of A. crucigera was 3.8%. The percent sequence divergence between A. cardamomensis sp. nov. and A. crucigera ranged between 10.0–14.6%.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-23
Author(s):  
Zeeshan A. Mirza ◽  
Harshal Bhosale ◽  
Faizan Ansari ◽  
Pushkar Phansalkar ◽  
Mandar Sawant ◽  
...  

We here describe a new species of bent-toed geckos from the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, which is widespread across the Dafla and Mishmi hills, occurring at elevations ranging from 179 m to 1400 m. The new species is recovered as sister to the Cyrtodactylus khasiensis clade based on a molecular phylogeny inferred from mitochondrial NADH-ubiquinone oxidoreductase, subunit 2 gene. Intraspecific uncorrected pairwise sequence divergence (p-distance) for the new species was found to be between 0 and 5%, whereas the interspecific divergence from the closely-related congeners was between 19 and 30%. The new species can be differentiated from members of the C. khasiensis clade using a suite of morphological characters: moderate body size (SVL 64.9–81.7); 8–11 supralabials; 8–10 infralabials; 24–26 bluntly conical, feebly keeled dorsal tubercles; 50–60 paravertebral tubercles; ~38 ventral scales between ventrolateral folds; no precloacal groves; 6–10 precloacofemoral pores in a continuous series; 10–16 distal subdigital lamellae on IV of pes; subcaudal scalation of original tail without enlarged plates. This is the fourth reptile species described from Arunachal Pradesh from the expedition led by the team, and this further highlights the need for further herpetological investigations into the region.


Author(s):  
Modest Guţu ◽  
Thomas Iliffe

Leptochelia Vatulelensis(Crustacea: Tanaidacea), A New Species From Anchialine Caves of the South-Western PacificLeptochelia vatulelensisn. sp., discovered on the small islands of Vatulele (Fijian group) and Ouvéa (Loyalty Islands, New Caledonia), is described and illustrated. The new species is distinguished from the others of the"Leptochelia-dubiagroup" (to which it is generally similar) by the following combination of morphological characteristics: (1) the presence of three to four distal setae on the maxilliped basis; (2) merus of pereopods III and IV with only a distosternal seta; (3) endopod of the uropods formed of four (rarely three) articles; (4) males with two (sometimes three) relatively short aesthetascs on the first five articles of the antennular flagellum; (5) male cheliped with a diminished dimorphism; (6) males with a vertical comb-row of setae on the cheliped propodus. Although it inhabits inland, anchialine caves, the new species lacks morphological features that are characteristic of some cave species.


Zootaxa ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 4374 (4) ◽  
pp. 545 ◽  
Author(s):  
KALESH SADASIVAN ◽  
M. B. RAMESH ◽  
MUHAMED JAFER PALOT ◽  
MAYURESH AMBEKAR ◽  
ZEESHAN A. MIRZA

We here describe Sitana attenboroughii sp. nov., a new species of fan-throated lizard of the genus Sitana Cuvier, 1829 from coastal Kerala in southern India. The new species morphologically is closer to Sitana visiri Deepak, 2016 (in Deepak et al. 2016a), however, differs in having higher numbers of ventral scales and a comparatively short but richly colored dewlap. Genetically the new species shows affinity to Sitana marudhamneydhal Deepak, Khandekar, Varma & Chaitanya, 2016 from which it differs in an uncorrected pairwise sequence divergence of 2.2% for a fragment of mitochondrial Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide dehydrogenase (NADH) subunit 2 gene. 


Zootaxa ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 3599 (2) ◽  
pp. 178-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
ITAMAR A. MARTINS ◽  
HUSSAM ZAHER

A new species of the genus Holoaden is described from the Atlantic forest of the state of São Paulo, Brazil, being restricted to primary or slightly disturbed high altitude cloud forests along the northeastern portion of the Serra do Mar. The typelocality is determined as Estação Ecológica de Bananal, in the Municipality of Bananal, State of São Paulo, Brazil. The new species is characterized by its moderate body size (female 42.6–44.2 mm SVL; male 37.2–38.5 mm SVL) with long and slender limbs, a head wider than long, a highly glandular dorsum, covered by well developed macroglands that extend to the internasal region, thigh and tibia, and an intense dark brown dorsal coloration and dark grey ventral surface.


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