• The family Salamandridae is of Western Palearctic origin and started to diversify in the Late Cretaceous.
• The common ancestor was oviparous, mated on land without amplexus and probably showed a pin wheel spermatophore transfer.
• Colonization took place once to the Nearctic and twice to Eastern Asian realms.
• Changes in habitat type are not significantly correlated with changes in mating characters.
Abstract
Amphibians have a complex reproductive behaviour, which shows the highest diversity among tetrapodes. The family Salamandridae, distributed across the entire Holarctic, is one of the most diverse groups of extant salamanders comprising 114 species in 21 genera. The family has a remarkable diversity of courtship modes, amplexus and sperm transfer. It is often hypothesised that this diversity has evolved in adaptation to a specific mating and/or breeding habitat. We test this hypothesis based upon a phylogenetic reconstruction using the complete mitochondrial genome sequences of 45 Salamandridae species, representing all existing genera. We used ancestral character state reconstruction methods and geographic range models and applied relaxed Bayesian molecular clock models to discuss the results in a temporal framework of Salamandridae evolution. Our results show that the family Salamandridae started to diversify in the Late Cretaceous (ca. 87 mya) and is of Western Palearctic origin. Ancestral character state reconstruction predicts that its common ancestor was oviparous, mated on land without amplexus and probably showed a pin wheel spermatophore transfer, which is still found in the Italian endemic Salamandrina terdigidata. Our results suggest that several colonization of continents with subsequent radiations took place, once to the Nearctic and twice into Eastern Asian realms. However, these events were only in one case associated with a change in mating behaviour (dorsal amplexus in Nearctic newts). Around the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary (K-Pg boundary) several Salamandridae lineages further diverged, again with no obvious changes in mating behaviour. Overall, there is no significant signal for mating character evolution being caused by changes in habitat type, with only a slight tendency that changes in mating habitat might have led to changes in the type of sperm transfer which in turn was associated with changes in the presence or absence of amplexus.
Keywords: Mitogenomics; Bayesian molecular dating; geographic range; mating behaviour; ancestral character state reconstruction; coevolution
Sarah Kieren, Max Sparreboom, Axel Hochkirch and Michael Veith. 2018. A Biogeographic and Ecological Perspective to the Evolution of Reproductive Behaviour in the Family Salamandridae. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. In Press. DOI: 10.1016/j.ympev.2018.01.006
كيف تحصل على مدونة جاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات من هنا
شاهد قناة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بألاف المواضيع والمشاركات على اليوتيوب لمزيد من الشرح من هنا
رابط مدونة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات في أي وقت حــــتى لو تم حذفها من هنا شاهد صفحة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بألاف المواضيع والمشاركات على الفيس بوك لمزيد من الشرح من هنا
تعرف على ترتيب مواضيع منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات (حتى لا تختلط عليك الامور) من هنا
ملاحظة هامة: كل عمليات تنزيل، رفع، وتعديل المواضيع الجاهزة تتم بطريقة آلية، ونعتذر عن اي موضوع مخالف او مخل بالحياء مرفوع بالمدونات الجاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات، ولكم ان تقوموا بحذف هذه المواضيع والمشاركات والطريقة بسيطة وسهلة. ــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــسلامـ.
An increase in ecological opportunities, either through changes in the environment or acquisition of new traits, is frequently associated with an increase in species and morphological diversification. However, it is possible that certain ecological settings might prevent lineages from diversifying. Arboreality evolved multiple times in vipers, making them ideal organisms for exploring how potentially new ecological opportunities affect their morphology and speciation regimes. Arboreal snakes are frequently suggested to have a very specialized morphology, and being too large, too small, too heavy, or having short tails might be challenging for them. Using trait-evolution models, we show that arboreal vipers are evolving towards intermediate body sizes, with longer tails and more slender bodies than terrestrial vipers. Arboreality strongly constrains body size and circumference evolution in vipers, while terrestrial lineages are evolving towards a broader range of morphological variants. Trait-dependent diversification models, however, suggest similar speciation rates between microhabitats. Thus, we show that arboreality might constrain morphological evolution but not necessarily affect the rates at which lineages generate new species.
The arboreal Stejneger's Pitviper (Trimeresurus stejnegeri).
Photo: M. Martins
Laura Rodrigues Vieira de Alencar, Marcio Martins, Gustavo Burin and Tiago Bosisio Quental. 2017. Arboreality Constrains Morphological Evolution but Not Species Diversification in Vipers. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 284(1869)DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2017.1775
كيف تحصل على مدونة جاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات من هنا
شاهد قناة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بألاف المواضيع والمشاركات على اليوتيوب لمزيد من الشرح من هنا
رابط مدونة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات في أي وقت حــــتى لو تم حذفها من هنا شاهد صفحة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بألاف المواضيع والمشاركات على الفيس بوك لمزيد من الشرح من هنا
تعرف على ترتيب مواضيع منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات (حتى لا تختلط عليك الامور) من هنا
ملاحظة هامة: كل عمليات تنزيل، رفع، وتعديل المواضيع الجاهزة تتم بطريقة آلية، ونعتذر عن اي موضوع مخالف او مخل بالحياء مرفوع بالمدونات الجاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات، ولكم ان تقوموا بحذف هذه المواضيع والمشاركات والطريقة بسيطة وسهلة. ــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــسلامـ.
A new genus and species of fossil bat is described from New Zealand’s only pre-Pleistocene Cenozoic terrestrial fauna, the early Miocene St Bathans Fauna of Central Otago, South Island. Bayesian total evidence phylogenetic analysis places this new Southern Hemisphere taxon among the burrowing bats (mystacinids) of New Zealand and Australia, although its lower dentition also resembles Africa’s endemic sucker-footed bats (myzopodids). As the first new bat genus to be added to New Zealand’s fauna in more than 150 years, it provides new insight into the original diversity of chiropterans in Australasia. It also underscores the significant decline in morphological diversity that has taken place in the highly distinctive, semi-terrestrial bat family Mystacinidae since the Miocene. This bat was relatively large, with an estimated body mass of ~40 g, and its dentition suggests it had an omnivorous diet. Its striking dental autapomorphies, including development of a large hypocone, signal a shift of diet compared with other mystacinids, and may provide evidence of an adaptive radiation in feeding strategy in this group of noctilionoid bats.
An artist's impression of a New Zealand burrowing bat, Mystacina robusta, that went extinct last century. The new fossil find, Vulcanops jennyworthyae, that lived millions of years ago in New Zealand, is an ancient relative of burrowing or short-tailed bats.
Illustration: Gavin Mouldey.
Systematic palaeontology
Order Chiroptera Blumenbach, 1779
Suborder Yangochiroptera Van den Bussche & Hoofer, 2004
Superfamily Noctilionoidea Gray, 1821
Family Mystacinidae Dobson, 1875
Vulcanops jennyworthyae gen. et sp. nov.
Figure 1 Vulcanops jennyworthyae gen. et sp. nov., Bannockburn Formation, St Bathans, Central Otago, New Zealand. Lower dentition. CM 2013.18.790, holotype, left dentary fragment containing m2-3. (a) Buccal view; (b–b’) stereopair, occlusal view; (c) lingual view m2-3. NMNZ S.52078, paratype, right m1. (d–d’) Stereopair, oblique occlusal view; (e) buccal view; (f) occlusal view.
Stratigraphic and geographic distribution: Lower Miocene of Central Otago, New Zealand.
Etymology: From Vulcan, mythological god of fireand volcanoes (Roman), and ops, a suffix commonly used for bats; in reference to New Zealand’s tectonically active nature, as well as to the historic Vulcan Hotel, centre of the hamlet of St Bathans, from which the fauna takes its name. The species name honours Jennifer P. Worthy in recognition of her pivotal role in revealing the diversity of the St Bathans Fauna.
The fossil dig site at St Bathans in New Zealand where the fossilised remains of an extinct giant burrowing bat, Vulcanops jennyworthyae, were found.
photo: Trevor Worthy.
Washing of St Bathans sediments through sieves in Manuherikia River in New Zealand to collect fossil bones and teeth of an ancient burrowing bat.
photo: Vanesa De Pietri.
Suzanne J. Hand, Robin M. D. Beck, Michael Archer, Nancy B. Simmons, Gregg F. Gunnell, R. Paul Scofield, Alan J. D. Tennyson, Vanesa L. De Pietri, Steven W. Salisbury and Trevor H. Worthy. 2018. A New, Large-bodied Omnivorous Bat (Noctilionoidea: Mystacinidae) reveals Lost Morphological and Ecological Diversity since the Miocene in New Zealand. Scientific Reports. 8, Article number: 235. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-18403-w
كيف تحصل على مدونة جاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات من هنا
شاهد قناة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بألاف المواضيع والمشاركات على اليوتيوب لمزيد من الشرح من هنا
رابط مدونة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات في أي وقت حــــتى لو تم حذفها من هنا شاهد صفحة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بألاف المواضيع والمشاركات على الفيس بوك لمزيد من الشرح من هنا
تعرف على ترتيب مواضيع منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات (حتى لا تختلط عليك الامور) من هنا
ملاحظة هامة: كل عمليات تنزيل، رفع، وتعديل المواضيع الجاهزة تتم بطريقة آلية، ونعتذر عن اي موضوع مخالف او مخل بالحياء مرفوع بالمدونات الجاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات، ولكم ان تقوموا بحذف هذه المواضيع والمشاركات والطريقة بسيطة وسهلة. ــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــسلامـ.
For more than a century we have known that a high diversity of arthropod species lives in close relationship with army ant colonies. For instance, several hundred guest species have been described to be associated with the Neotropical army ant Eciton burchellii Westwood, 1842. Despite ongoing efforts to survey army ant guest diversity, it is evident that many more species await scientific discovery.
Results:
We conducted a large-scale community survey of Eciton-associated symbionts, combined with extensive DNA barcoding, which led to the discovery of numerous new species, among them a highly specialized histerid beetle, which is formally described here. Analyses of genitalic morphology with support of molecular characters revealed that the new species is a member of the genus Nymphister. We provide a literature review of host records and host-following mechanisms of Eciton-associated Haeteriinae demonstrating that the new species uses an unusual way of phoretic transport to track the nomadic habit of host ants. Using its long mandibles as gripping pliers, the beetle attaches between the ants’ petiole and postpetiole. The beetles specifically attach to medium-sized ant workers, thus participating as hitchhikers in the regular colony emigrations of the single host species Eciton mexicanum Roger, 1863.
Conclusion:
By providing tools for reliable species identification via morphology and DNA barcodes for hitherto unknown army ant guest species, we set the baseline for studies targeting the ecological and evolutionary dynamics in these species-rich host-symbiont communities.
Keywords: Phoresy, Social parasitism, Myrmecophile, Eciton, Host specificity, Nymphister, Army ants, Specialization, Symbiosis
Nymphister kronaueri
Etymology. We dedicate this species to Daniel Kronauer, an avid field biologist and long-time army ant researcher, who discovered the species during an Eciton mexicanum s. str. colony emigration.
Distribution. Known only from the type locality, i.e. La Selva Biological Station, a lowland Atlantic rainforest in Costa Rica.
Conclusions
Despite the enduring efforts to explore the microcosm of army ant-associated arthropods, a large proportion of unknown biodiversity still exists today. Myrmecophile communities of army ant species other than E. burchellii and E. hamatum have not been intensively studied, and thus it can be expected that many more species with fascinating adaptations still await scientific discovery. The present study is an example demonstrating the benefits of a combined approach, using morphology and DNA barcodes, to discover and describe new species in ant-myrmecophile communities.
Christoph von Beeren and Alexey K. Tishechkin. 2017. Nymphister kronaueri von Beeren & Tishechkin sp. nov., An Army Ant-associated Beetle Species (Coleoptera: Histeridae: Haeteriinae) with An Exceptional Mechanism of Phoresy. BMC Zoology. 2:3. DOI: 10.1186/s40850-016-0010-x
كيف تحصل على مدونة جاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات من هنا
شاهد قناة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بألاف المواضيع والمشاركات على اليوتيوب لمزيد من الشرح من هنا
رابط مدونة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات في أي وقت حــــتى لو تم حذفها من هنا شاهد صفحة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بألاف المواضيع والمشاركات على الفيس بوك لمزيد من الشرح من هنا
تعرف على ترتيب مواضيع منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات (حتى لا تختلط عليك الامور) من هنا
ملاحظة هامة: كل عمليات تنزيل، رفع، وتعديل المواضيع الجاهزة تتم بطريقة آلية، ونعتذر عن اي موضوع مخالف او مخل بالحياء مرفوع بالمدونات الجاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات، ولكم ان تقوموا بحذف هذه المواضيع والمشاركات والطريقة بسيطة وسهلة. ــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــسلامـ.
The frog Pristimantis marmoratus was originally described as Hylodes marmoratus by George A. Boulenger in 1900 based on a single specimen reported to have been collected at the foot of Mount Roraima in Guyana in 1898. We herein discuss the exact location of the type locality of P. marmoratus and provide a redescription of the species based on new material from Kaieteur National Park and from the slopes of Maringma-tepui in Guyana. We also describe the previously unknown vocalization and breeding ecology of the species, and conducted an exploratory molecular analysis of the phylogenetic relationships within the genus Pristimantis represented by the members of the “unistrigatus species group” in the Guiana Shield. Pristimantis marmoratus is a small-sized species mainly distinguished from its known Guiana Shield congeners by the combination of F I < II, SVL ≤ 20.4 in males, presence of vocal slits in males, granular/pustulate dorsal skin with well-developed scapular ridges, basal webbing between fingers, fringes on fingers and toes, crossed iris, diffuse yellow or pale green wash on groin, and absence of flashy colour on axillary/pre-axillary region. The advertisement call consists of a single note repeated at a rate of ca 11 calls/min with a dominant frequency ranging from 2756 to 3101 Hz. Pristimantis marmoratus is primarily arboreal, exclusively active at dusk, and probably restricted to the pristine rainforests of the Pantepui uplands and highlands, east of the Gran Sabana between ca 600 and 1800 m above sea level. Preliminary molecular analyses recovered Pristimantis marmoratus as sister to an unnamed species from the Eastern Guiana Shield. On grounds of the newly established distributional extent we suggest maintaining the IUCN conservation status as Least Concern.
Family Craugastoridae Hedges, Duellman & Heinicke, 2008
Genus Pristimantis Jiménez de la Espada, 1870
Pristimantis marmoratus (Boulenger, 1900)
....
Fig. 4. Pristimantis marmoratus (Boulenger, 1900) (four individuals at the top) and P. pulvinatus (Rivero, 1968) (two individuals below). Intraspecific variation in dorsal colour pattern and sexual dimorphism in living specimens. Note: the subtle hint of green visible on the lower body and legs of some specimens of P. marmoratus is due to a reflection of the substrate (green leaf).
Photographs by Philippe J.R. Kok, except the uncollected P. pulvinatus, which is by César L. Barrio-Amorós.
Fig. 6. A. Guzmania cf. sphaeroidea (André) André ex Mez, an arboreal bromeliad species used as egg deposition site by Pristimantis marmoratus (Boulenger, 1900) in the Wokomung Massif. B. Egg clutch of Pristimantis marmoratus deposited on a leaf of the arboreal bromeliad Guzmania cf. sphaeroidea in the Wokomung Massif. C. Egg clutch of Anomaloglossus beebei (Noble, 1923) (white arrow) deposited in the phytotelmata of the same plant as in B. D. Dorsolateral view of IRSNB 17916, 11.3 mm SVL, a juvenile of P. marmoratus collected on the slopes of Maringma-tepui, Guyana.
Photographs A–C by D. Bruce Means, D by Philippe J.R. Kok.
Natural history:
All specimens were found in undisturbed submontane or montane rainforest (Fig. 9), active on small trees 50–300 cm above the ground, exclusively at dusk. Pristimantis marmoratus is not a common species; only a few specimens have been found at each locality of occurrence. Males were found calling (in June and November) upside down from mossy tree trunks of low diameter (< 10 cm) between 120 and 300 cm above the ground, except one male (IRSNB 14473), which was calling from the top of a green leaf 50 cm above the ground. The “upside down” call posture is also found in the closely related P. sp. 1 of Fouquet et al. (2013) (as recovered in our preliminary molecular phylogenetic analysis, see below), and in P. espedeus and P. inguinalis.
In June 2012, which corresponds to the rainy season in the area, a cluster of four Pristimantis marmoratus eggs (Fig. 6B) was found by one of us (DBM) attached to the inside part of a leaf of a bromeliad, Guzmania cf. sphaeroidea (André) André ex Mez (Fig. 6A), 150 cm above the ground, on Mount Kopinang, Wokomung Massif, near the top of Kamana Falls at about 1600 m elevation (04°59′58″ N, 59°52′49″ W). Molecular analyses confirmed conspecificity of these eggs with P. marmoratus (Appendix 3). The large, white eggs did not have visibly developed embryos. After photographing and preserving the eggs, the small plant was investigated for inhabitants of the aquatic portion of the phytotelmata. Immediately a small frog jumped out and disappeared into the deep ground litter, and eggs and tadpoles of Anomaloglossus beebei (Noble, 1923) were found in the water of the phytotelmata of the same small bromeliad and in the water of five other bromeliads nearby (egg/frog identifications confirmed by molecular analyses). Pristimantis marmoratus and Anomaloglossus beebei thus share the same bromeliad as an oviposition site on the Wokomung Massif (Fig. 6C). Other Pristimantis species found in syntopy with P. marmoratus were P. dendrobatoides (above 1600 m elevation), P. jester (above 1300 m elevation), P. saltissimus (above 1000 m elevation), and P. pulvinatus (above 1000 m elevation).
Philippe J.R. Kok, Raheleh Dezfoulian, D. Bruce Means, Antoine Fouquet and César L. Barrio-Amorós. 2018. Amended Diagnosis and Redescription of Pristimantis marmoratus (Boulenger, 1900) (Amphibia: Craugastoridae), with A Description of Its Advertisement Call and Notes on Its Breeding Ecology and Phylogenetic Relationships. European Journal of Taxonomy. 397; 1–30. DOI: 10.5852/ejt.2018.397
كيف تحصل على مدونة جاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات من هنا
شاهد قناة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بألاف المواضيع والمشاركات على اليوتيوب لمزيد من الشرح من هنا
رابط مدونة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات في أي وقت حــــتى لو تم حذفها من هنا شاهد صفحة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بألاف المواضيع والمشاركات على الفيس بوك لمزيد من الشرح من هنا
تعرف على ترتيب مواضيع منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات (حتى لا تختلط عليك الامور) من هنا
ملاحظة هامة: كل عمليات تنزيل، رفع، وتعديل المواضيع الجاهزة تتم بطريقة آلية، ونعتذر عن اي موضوع مخالف او مخل بالحياء مرفوع بالمدونات الجاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات، ولكم ان تقوموا بحذف هذه المواضيع والمشاركات والطريقة بسيطة وسهلة. ــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــسلامـ.
In an era of accelerated biodiversity loss and limited conservation resources, systematic prioritization of species and places is essential. In terrestrial vertebrates, evolutionary distinctness has been used to identify species and locations that embody the greatest share of evolutionary history. We estimate evolutionary distinctness for a large marine vertebrate radiation on a dated taxon-complete tree for all 1,192 chondrichthyan fishes (sharks, rays and chimaeras) by augmenting a new 610-species molecular phylogeny using taxonomic constraints. Chondrichthyans are by far the most evolutionarily distinct of all major radiations of jawed vertebrates—the average species embodies 26 million years of unique evolutionary history. With this metric, we identify 21 countries with the highest richness, endemism and evolutionary distinctness of threatened species as targets for conservation prioritization. On average, threatened chondrichthyans are more evolutionarily distinct—further motivating improved conservation, fisheries management and trade regulation to avoid significant pruning of the chondrichthyan tree of life.
A representative taxon-complete tree with phylogenetic distribution of molecular data coverage. Clades are shaded according to molecular data coverage within each order, and those species with molecular data are indicated by outer ticks. Red dots highlight nodes defining orders, with the paraphyletic order Rhinopristiformes delimited by two highly supported nodes.
R. William Stein, Christopher G. Mull, Tyler S. Kuhn, Neil C. Aschliman, Lindsay N. K. Davidson, Jeffrey B. Joy, Gordon J. Smith, Nicholas K. Dulvy and Arne O. Mooers. 2018. Global Priorities for Conserving the Evolutionary History of Sharks, Rays and Chimaeras. Nature Ecology & Evolution. 2; 288–298. DOI: 10.1038/s41559-017-0448-4
كيف تحصل على مدونة جاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات من هنا
شاهد قناة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بألاف المواضيع والمشاركات على اليوتيوب لمزيد من الشرح من هنا
رابط مدونة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات في أي وقت حــــتى لو تم حذفها من هنا شاهد صفحة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بألاف المواضيع والمشاركات على الفيس بوك لمزيد من الشرح من هنا
تعرف على ترتيب مواضيع منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات (حتى لا تختلط عليك الامور) من هنا
ملاحظة هامة: كل عمليات تنزيل، رفع، وتعديل المواضيع الجاهزة تتم بطريقة آلية، ونعتذر عن اي موضوع مخالف او مخل بالحياء مرفوع بالمدونات الجاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات، ولكم ان تقوموا بحذف هذه المواضيع والمشاركات والطريقة بسيطة وسهلة. ــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــسلامـ.
Asian Mountain Toads (Ophryophryne) are a poorly known genus of mostly small-sized anurans from southeastern China and Indochina. To shed light on the systematics within this group, the most comprehensive mitochondrial DNA phylogeny for the genus to date is presented, and the taxonomy and biogeography of this group is discussed. Complimented with extensive morphological data (including associated statistical analyses), molecular data indicates that the Langbian Plateau, in the southern Annamite Mountains, Vietnam, is one of the diversity centres of this genus where three often sympatric species of Ophryophryne are found, O. gerti, O. synoria and an undescribed species. To help resolve outstanding taxonomic confusion evident in literature (reviewed herein), an expanded redescription of O. gerti is provided based on the examination of type material, and the distributions of both O. gerti and O. synoria are considerably revised based on new locality records. We provide the first descriptions of male mating calls for all three species, permitting a detailed bioacoustics comparison of the species. We describe the new species from highlands of the northern and eastern Langbian Plateau, and distinguish it from its congeners by a combination of morphological, molecular and acoustic characters. The new species represents one of the smallest known members of the genus Ophryophryne. At present, the new species is known from montane evergreen forest between 700–2200 m a.s.l. We suggest the species should be considered Data Deficient following IUCN’s Red List categories.
Keywords: 12S rRNA, 16S rRNA, advertisement call, amphibian, biodiversity, Da Lat Plateau, frog, Indochina, southeast Asia, taxonomy, Truong Son
Figure 13. Comparison of the head coloration in life of three Ophryophryne species from the Langbian Plateau: A Ophryophryne synoria, Bu Gia Map N.P., Binh Phuoc Prov., Vietnam B Ophryophryne gerti, Chu Yang Sin N.P., Dak Lak Prov., Vietnam C Ophryophryne elfina sp. n., Hon Giao Mt., Bidoup–Nui Ba N.P., Lam Dong Prov. Photos by N.A. Poyarkov and N.L. Orlov.
Figure 6. Ophryophryne species of the Langbian Plateau (Vietnam): AOphryophryne gerti, female, Chu Yang Sin N.P., Dak Lak Prov., 1000 m a.s.l. B O. gerti, male, Chu Yang Sin N.P., Dak Lak Prov., 1000 m a.s.l. CO. gerti, male, Bidoup–Nui Ba N.P., Lam Dong Prov., 1550 m a.s.l. DO. synoria, female, Bu Gia Map N.P., Binh Phuoc Prov., 400 m a.s.l. EO. synoria, male, Chu Yang Sin Mt., Chu Yang Sin N.P., Dak Lak Prov., 1000 m a.s.l. FO. synoria, male, Bidoup–Nui Ba N.P., Lam Dong Prov., 1550 m a.s.l. G Ophryophryne elfina sp. n., male, Chu Yang Sin Mt., Chu Yang Sin N.P., Dak Lak Prov., 2000 m a.s.l. HOphryophryne elfina sp. n., male, Hon Giao Mt., Bidoup–Nui Ba N.P., Lam Dong and Khanh Hoa provincial border, 2000 m a.s.l.
Photos by N.A. Poyarkov and N.L. Orlov.
• Taxonomic remarks on Ophryophryne gerti Ohler, 2003
Redescription of the holotype: Mature male (SVL 35.7 mm), habitus slender (Fig. 7A, B). Specimen in good state of preservation; two incisions are present on trunk, one longitudinally orientated on mid-abdomen, another longitudinally oriented on upper flank on right side; liver and testes observable through incisions, testes enlarged; jaw is dislocated on right allowing visual access to buccal cavity. .....
• New records and range extension for Ophryophryne synoriaStuart, Sok & Neang, 2006
Distribution and remarks: Stuart et al. (2006) described a large-sized Ophryophryne from O’Rang (also spelled as “O’Reang”) District in eastern Cambodia, close to the Vietnamese border, as O. synoria (Loc. 1, Fig. 1). Subsequently, during field surveys in 2009–2011, the species was reported in southern Vietnam from Bu Gia Map N.P., Binh Phuoc Prov. (Loc. 2, Fig. 1) and Cat Tien N.P. in Dong Nai Prov. (Loc. 3, Fig. 1) based on morphological evidence (Vassilieva et al. 2016). Herein, we confirm the identity of these specimens based on morphological and molecular genetic evidence, and further expand its distribution in southern Vietnam to include medium and low elevation localities in the central and western parts of the Langbian Plateau (Dak Lak, Lam Dong, Dong Nai and Binh Phuoc provinces between 200 and 1500 m a.s.l.; its presence in Dak Nong Prov. is anticipated). We also identify two mtDNA lineages within O. synoria with a moderate level of sequence divergence (p = 2.6%: Table 2, Fig. 2): Subclade B inhabits mountain areas in Lam Dong and Dak Lak provinces and was also recorded for the lowland habitat in Dong Nai Prov. (Locs. 3–4, 6 and 11, Fig. 1) whereas Subclade C is only found in Mondolkiri Prov. of Cambodia and adjacent Binh Phuoc Prov. of Vietnam (Fig. 1, Locs 1–2) and corresponds to O. synoria s. stricto.
Figure 14. Ophryophryne elfina sp. n.in situ: A Two syntopically collected males of Ophryophryne gerti (left) and Ophryophryne elfina sp. n. (right) in Chu Yang Sin N.P., Dak Lak Prov., Vietnam, 1750 m a.s.l., photo by N.L. Orlov B calling adult male of Ophryophryne elfina sp. n. in Nui Chua Mt., Nui Chua N.P., Ninh Thuan Prov., Vietnam, 780 m a.s.l., photo by S.N. Nguyen C adult male of Ophryophryne elfina sp. n. in calling position in Hon Ba N.R., Khanh Hoa Prov., Vietnam, 1510 m a.s.l., photo by L.T. Nguyen.
• Description of a new species of Ophryophryne
Based upon several lines of evidence, including the analyses of diagnostic morphological characters, acoustic analyses of advertisement calls and phylogenetic analyses of mtDNA sequences for the 12S rRNA–16S rRNA genes, the new species of Ophryophryne from mid to high elevations of the western Langbian Plateau represents a highly divergent mtDNA lineage, clearly distinct from all other Ophryophryne species. These results support our hypothesis that this recently discovered lineage of Ophryophryne represents an undescribed species, described below:
Ophryophryne elfina sp. n.
Etymology: The specific epithet is an adjective (in agreement with the genus name in feminine gender), derived from “elf”, the English spelling of “alfus” in Latin, referring to usually forest-dwelling supernatural mythological creatures in Germanic mythology and folklore; the name is given in reference both to the funny appearance and small size of the new species, as well as to the their endangered habitat, restricted to wet evergreen montane forests at high elevations of the Langbian Plateau; such forests are often called “elfin forests”.
Recommended vernacular name: The recommended common name in English is “Elfin Mountain Toad”. The recommended common name in Vietnamese is “Cóc Núi Tiểu Yêu Tinh”.
Figure 9. Holotype of Ophryophryne elfina sp. n. in life (ZMMU A-5669, male, field number NAP-02658), dorsolateral view. Photos by N.A. Poyarkov.
Figure 10. Paratypes ofOphryophryne elfina sp. n. in life. A–D Bidoup Mt., Bidoup–Nui Ba N.P., Lam Dong Prov., 2000 m a.s.l.: A ZMMU A-4788 (field number NAP-01449), male, dorsolateral view B ZMMU A-4788 (field number NAP-01455), female, dorsolateral view C ZMMU A-4788 (field number NAP-01449), male, ventral view D ZMMU A-4788 (field number NAP-01455), female, ventral view E–F Chu Yang Sin Mt., Chu Yang Sin N.P., Dak Lak Prov., 1800 m a.s.l.: E ZMMU A-5691 (field number ABV-00580), metamorph, dorsolateral view F ZMMU A-5691 (field number ABV-00581), metamorph, dorsolateral view. Photos by N.A. Poyarkov.
Distribution: Ophryophryne elfina sp. n. is found to be endemic to five provinces in (Lam Dong, Dak Lak, Khanh Hoa, Ninh Thuan and Phu Yen) in the northern and eastern part of the Langbian Plateau and its foothills in southern Vietnam (localities 6–12, Fig. 1). The new species is restricted to wet evergreen montane tropical and elfin forests, receiving high precipitation from the sea. Such wet forests are found only on high elevations in the central parts of the Langbian Plateau (e.g. 1900–2100 m a.s.l. on Bidoup Mt., Lam Dong Prov., Fig. 1, Loc. 6) or peripheral mountains remote from the sea (e.g. 1900–2300 m a.s.l. on Chu Pan Fan and Chu Yang Sin Mts., Dak Lak Prov., Fig. 1, Locs 10 and 11), but on the eastern foothills of the plateau which receive more precipitation, the new species is found at lower elevation (from 950 to 1510 m a.s.l. on Hon Ba Mt., Khanh Hoa Prov., Fig. 1, Loc. 8; 780 m a.s.l. on Nui Chua Mt., Ninh Thuan Prov., Fig. 1, Loc. 9; and 700 m in Phu Yen Prov., Fig. 1, Loc. 12).
.....
Nikolay A. Poyarkov Jr., Tang Van Duong, Nikolai L. Orlov, Svetlana S. Gogoleva, Anna B. Vassilieva, Luan Thanh Nguyen, Vu Dang Hoang Nguyen, Sang Ngoc Nguyen, Jing Che and Stephen Mahony. 2017. Molecular, Morphological and Acoustic Assessment of the Genus Ophryophryne (Anura, Megophryidae) from Langbian Plateau, southern Vietnam, with Description of A New Species. ZooKeys. 672: 49-120. DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.672.10624
كيف تحصل على مدونة جاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات من هنا
شاهد قناة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بألاف المواضيع والمشاركات على اليوتيوب لمزيد من الشرح من هنا
رابط مدونة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات في أي وقت حــــتى لو تم حذفها من هنا شاهد صفحة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بألاف المواضيع والمشاركات على الفيس بوك لمزيد من الشرح من هنا
تعرف على ترتيب مواضيع منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات (حتى لا تختلط عليك الامور) من هنا
ملاحظة هامة: كل عمليات تنزيل، رفع، وتعديل المواضيع الجاهزة تتم بطريقة آلية، ونعتذر عن اي موضوع مخالف او مخل بالحياء مرفوع بالمدونات الجاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات، ولكم ان تقوموا بحذف هذه المواضيع والمشاركات والطريقة بسيطة وسهلة. ــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــسلامـ.