Abstract
Scinax is a speciose genus of Neotropical hylid frogs. We describe a new species from western Ecuador (elevations between 0 and 1207 m) using morphology, vocalizations, and DNA sequences. We also present a new phylogeny for Scinax based on mitochondrial DNA genes 12S rRNA, Cytochrome Oxidase sub-unit I, Cytochrome B, 16S rRNA, NADH dehydrogenase subunit 1, and adjacent tRNAs. The new species, Scinax tsachila sp. nov. was previously confused with S. quinquefasciatus, a morphologically similar sympatric species. They differ by having markedly different advisement calls, distinct skin texture in the dorsum, and different bone coloration. The new species is sister to S. elaeochroa, a species that differs in advertisement call and color pattern. We provide an updated species account for Scinax quinquefasciatus and a redescription of its holotype.
| Original language | English |
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| Article number | e0203169 |
| Journal | PLoS ONE |
| Volume | 13 |
| Issue number | 9 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Sep 2018 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2018 Ron et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Funding
Field and laboratory work were funded by grants from the Secretaría Nacional de Educación Superior, Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación del Ecuador SENESCYT (Arca de Noé initiative; SRR and Omar Torres principal investigators), and a grant from Pontificia Universidad CatoÂlica del Ecuador of the Direccion General Académica (DGA) department for SRR. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Ned Gilmore provided photographs of the holotype of S. quinquefasciatus. Yerka Sagredo took morphometric measurements. Pol Pintanel provided photographs of S. tsachila. Nadia Páez helped organizing sequences from GenBank. For collection of specimens of the new species we are indebted to Néstor Acosta, Diego Almeida, Freddy Almeida, Felipe Campos, David Cannatella, Luis Coloma, Gloria Correa, Eugenia del Pino, Stella de la Torre, Marinus Hoogmoed, John D. Lynch, Stephan Lotters, Andrés Merino, Andrea Narváez, Darwin Nuñez, Eloy Nusirquia, Giovanni Onore, Fernando Ortiz, Samael Padilla, Daniela Pareja, Gustavo Pazmiño, Pol Pintanel, Steven Poe, Giovanna Romero, John E. Simmons, Paul Székely, David Salazar, Elicio Tapia, Italo Tapia, Eduardo Toral, Linda Trueb, Laurie Vitt, and John Wiens.
| Funders | Funder number |
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| Secretaría de Educación Superior, Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación |