TY - JOUR
T1 - A new species of cryptic bush frog (anura, rhacophoridae, Raorchestes) from northeastern Bangladesh
AU - Al-Razi, Hassan
AU - Maria, Marjan
AU - Muzaffar, Sabir Bin
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank the Forest Department for providing the necessary permission and for approving our protocol. We thank Ranjit Vijayan, Department of Biology, United Arab Emirates University, for providing helpful comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. The authors are also thankful to Amaël Borzée, College of Biology and the Environment, Nanjing Forestry University for his assistance with the phylogenetic analy ses. The authors are grateful to Professor Dr. M. Saiful Islam, Chairman, Department of Zoology, Jagannath University, for his support to keep the specimens in Department of Zoology, Jagannath University. We are obliged to INVENT TECHNOLOGY for permission to use their laboratory. We are especially appreciative of Habibun Nobi Al Hasib (Joy), Faiyaz Hassan, and Jafor Bhai for their support during field work. Lastly, we are thankful to Tanvir Ahmed who provided materials for the map.
Publisher Copyright:
© Hassan Al-Razi et al.
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - Raorchestes is a speciose genus of bush frogs with high diversity occurring in the Western Ghats of India. Relatively fewer species have been recorded across India, through Bangladesh, southern China, into Vietnam and Peninsular Malaysia. Many bush frogs are morphologically cryptic and therefore remain undescribed. Here, a new species, Raorchestes rezakhani sp. nov., is described from northeastern Bangladesh based on morphological characters, genetics, and bioacoustics. The 16S rRNA gene distinguished this species from 48 known species of this genus. Bayesian Inference and Maximum Likelihood analyses indicated that the new species was most similar to R. tuberohumerus, a species found in the Western Ghats, and to R. gryllus, a species found in Vietnam. Bioacoustics indicated that their calls were similar in pattern to most Raorchestes species, although number of pulses, duration of pulses, pulse intervals and amplitude differentiated it from a few other species. It is suggested that northeastern India, Bangladesh, northern Myanmar, and southern China represent important, relatively unexplored areas that could yield additional species of Raorchestes. Since many remaining habitat patches in Bangladesh are under severe threat from deforestation, efforts should be made to protect these last patches from further degradation.
AB - Raorchestes is a speciose genus of bush frogs with high diversity occurring in the Western Ghats of India. Relatively fewer species have been recorded across India, through Bangladesh, southern China, into Vietnam and Peninsular Malaysia. Many bush frogs are morphologically cryptic and therefore remain undescribed. Here, a new species, Raorchestes rezakhani sp. nov., is described from northeastern Bangladesh based on morphological characters, genetics, and bioacoustics. The 16S rRNA gene distinguished this species from 48 known species of this genus. Bayesian Inference and Maximum Likelihood analyses indicated that the new species was most similar to R. tuberohumerus, a species found in the Western Ghats, and to R. gryllus, a species found in Vietnam. Bioacoustics indicated that their calls were similar in pattern to most Raorchestes species, although number of pulses, duration of pulses, pulse intervals and amplitude differentiated it from a few other species. It is suggested that northeastern India, Bangladesh, northern Myanmar, and southern China represent important, relatively unexplored areas that could yield additional species of Raorchestes. Since many remaining habitat patches in Bangladesh are under severe threat from deforestation, efforts should be made to protect these last patches from further degradation.
KW - Amphibian
KW - Bush frog
KW - DNA
KW - Herpetofauna
KW - Raorchestes rezakhani sp. nov
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85083977977&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85083977977&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3897/zookeys.927.48733
DO - 10.3897/zookeys.927.48733
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85083977977
SN - 1313-2989
VL - 2020
SP - 127
EP - 151
JO - ZooKeys
JF - ZooKeys
IS - 927
ER -