New Mossy Frog from Madagascar

http://www.markscherz.com/wp-content/uploads/ZSE_article_21037.pdf
https://zse.pensoft.net/articles.php?id=21037

A new species of Gephyromantis has been discovered in the "mountainous area of Sorata", in northern Madagascar.

"The new species, which we dubbed Gephyromantis (Vatomantis) lomorina due to its mossy appearance (lomorina is a Malagasy word meaning ‘covered in moss’), is interesting for a number of reasons. First of all, it is not quite clear where it fits into the rest of the genus Gephyromantis. Genetically, it is somewhere in between the two subgenera Vatomantis (containing three species of smooth-skinned, green, riparian frogs with divided vocal sacs) and Laurentomantis (containing a handful of lumpy, brownish frogs with broad heads and single vocal sacs), sometimes coming out closer related to one of these than the other, but always it was found to be one of the more distant relatives of these two groups. The morphology and call fit this genetic weirdness as well; the call (which you can download and listen to here) is more similar to Laurentomantis species, but the morphology is a bit more like Vatomantis species, especially the green colour and the divided vocal sacs. So in the end we placed the new species in Vatomantis, but it hints that the relationships between these two subgenera are quite unclear, a point made in a previous study by Kaffenberger et al. (2012) based solely on genetic grounds."
A plate of the variation in Gephyromantis (Vatomantis) lomorina from Marojejy

Scherz, M.D., Hawlitschek, O., Razafindraibe, J.H., Megson, S., Ratsoavina, F.M., Rakotoarison, A., Bletz, M.C., Glaw, F. & Vences, M. (2018) A distinctive new frog species (Anura, Mantellidae) supports the biogeographic linkage of the montane rainforest massifs of northern Madagascar. Zoosystematics and Evolution, 94(2):247–261.

Posted on April 13, 2018 04:00 PM by calebcam