| Abstrakt: |
Indirana salelkari, a new species of leaping frog, is described from Netravali, Goa, India. The species can be distinguished from its congeners by a combination of morphological characters, viz., head longer than wide, narrow and deep buccal cavity, vomerine teeth large and acutely placed close to each other, oval choanae, distinct canthus rostralis, first finger longer than or equal to second, presence of double outer palmer tubercles, elongated inner metatarsal tubercle, moderate webbing, discs of fingers and toes with crescentic deep marginal grooves restricted only to the anterior side of the discs, dorsal skin with glandular folds but without warts, ventral skin granular with some mottling on throat and, palms and soles dark brown. Indirana salelkari differs from its sister taxa, I. chiravasi, in the placement and structure of vomerine teeth and choanae. The new species is genetically distinct from I. chiravasi, with a genetic distance of 3.8% for the 16S rRNA gene. We also provide phylogentic placement of Indirana salelkari based on mitochondrial 12S and 16S ribosomal genes and nuclear rhodopsin gene along with molecular clock analysis, which further confirms its genetic distinctness from other related taxa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
