A New Species of Putatively Pond Breeding Frog of the Genus Guibemantis from Southeastern Madagascar
We describe a new frog species of the genus Guibemantis in the subgenus Pandanusicola from southeastern Madagascar and provide a redescription of a morphologically similar species, G. pulcher, based on its type series and on newly collected material. The new species, Guibemantis tasifotsy, differs from most Pandanusicola by probably not breeding in leaf axils of Pandanus plants but instead was collected calling from the vegetation above large, open lowland swamps. The green dorsal color of the new species is reminiscent of Guibemantis pulcher but can be distinguished from this Pandanus-breeding species by the presence of prominent white blotches along the flanks and by the structure of femoral glands in males. It shares these character states with G. liber from which the new species differs in details of coloration and advertisement call. Newly determined DNA sequences of the cytochrome b gene confirm that G. tasifotsy is genetically highly divergent from all other species of Guibemantis.
Type specimens of Guibemantis tasifotsy in life, in dorsal and ventral views. (A, B) Male holotype ZSM 750/2003 from Mangevo forest in Ranomafana National Park. (C, D) Male paratype ZMA 20114 from Vevembe forest.
Specimens of Guibemantis liber in life. (A) Male specimen and (B) male and female specimens (not collected) from Mandraka, photographed in 2000. (C, D) Male specimen from Montagne d'Ambre (ZSM 878/2003), photographed in 2003.
Specimens of Guibemantis pulcher in life, in dorsal and ventral views. (A, B) Female specimen from Ranomafana photographed in 2003. (C, D) Male specimen from Ankeniheny photographed in 1994.
Sonogram and oscillogram of a call of Guibemantis tasifotsy, recorded on 9 February 2004 at Vevembe forest (air temperature 23°C).
A Bayesian phylogeny based on cytochrome b mtDNA sequences within Guibemantis, illustrating the relationships among taxa of the subgenera Guibemantis (A), Pandanusicola (B), and the position of G. tasifotsy (in bold). Values above nodes indicate Bayesian posterior probability. Values below nodes indicate maximum likelihood/maximum parsimony bootstrap support. Only values over 70% or 0.7 are shown. The BI runs resulted in identical topologies and very similar likelihood estimates (mean lnL = −4011.09). ML results are based on the tree with the highest likelihood (lnL = −3950.42). The most parsimonious tree from the MP analysis possessed a length of 944 steps (consistency index, CI = 0.342; retention index, RI = 0.447).
Map showing the known distribution of Guibemantis tasifotsy as well as the two species with which it shares similarities in coloration. Note that G. cf. pulcher from Makira corresponds to a genetically divergent lineage that requires further study (see Fig. 5), and G. cf. pulcher from Sainte Luce refers to another highly divergent lineage not included in our tree but in the analysis of Lehtinen et al. (2007). Only localities are shown for which the identity of specimens has been verified by molecular data, except Andrangoloaka and Ankafana which refer to the historical type localities of G. liber and G. pulcher, respectively. In cases of sympatric occurrence of various species, symbols are spaced so that they do not overlap to become better recognizable; their position thus deviates slightly from the exact collecting sites. The locality Ranomafana (the area of and near Ranomafana National Park) includes various localities mentioned in the text: Maharira, Ranomena, Samalaotra, and Vohiparara.
Preserved name-bearing type specimens of (A) Guibemantis pulcher (lectotype BMNH 1947.2.27.65), (B) G. liber (lectotype BMNH 1947.2.8.63), and (C) G. tasifotsy (holotype ZSM 750/2003) in dorsal view. Not to scale; see Table 2 for measurements.
Contributor Notes
Associate Editor: B. Stuart.