A new nurse frog (Anura: Allobates) from Brazilian Amazonia with a remarkably fast multi-noted advertisement call

Jesus R D Souza; Miquéias Ferrão; James Hanken; Albertina P Lima

doi:10.7717/peerj.9979

A new nurse frog (Anura: Allobates) from Brazilian Amazonia with a remarkably fast multi-noted advertisement call

PeerJ. 2020 Nov 4:8:e9979. doi: 10.7717/peerj.9979. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Jesus R D Souza^{1

2}, Miquéias Ferrão^{3

4}, James Hanken³, Albertina P Lima⁴

Affiliations

¹ Programa de Pós-Graduação em Zoologia, Universidade Federal do Amazonas, Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil.
² Departamento de Áreas Protegidas e Biodiversidade, Secretaria de Meio Ambiente do Acre, Rio Branco, Acre, Brazil.
³ Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
⁴ Coordenação de Biodiversidade, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia, Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil.

Abstract

Nurse frogs (Aromobatidae: Allobates) are probably the most extensively studied genus by taxonomists in Brazilian Amazonia. The southwestern portion of Amazonia is the most species-rich: as many as seven species may occur in sympatry at a single locality. In this study, we describe a new species of nurse frog from this region. The description integrates data from larval and adult morphology, advertisement calls and DNA sequences. Allobates velocicantus sp. nov. is distinguished from other Allobates mainly by the absence of hourglass-shaped dark marks on the dorsum and dark transverse bars on the thigh; a throat that is white centrally and yellow marginally; basal webbing on toes II and III; finger I longer than finger II; and an advertisement call composed of 66-138 pulsed notes with a note duration of 5-13 ms, inter-note intervals of 10-18 ms and a dominant frequency of 5,512-6,158 Hz. Tadpoles of the new species have 3-4 short, rounded papillae on the anterior labium, 16-23 papillae on the posterior labium, and a labial keratodont row formula 2(2)/3(1). This is the fifth species of Allobates described from the state of Acre, southwestern Brazilian Amazonia.

Keywords: Advertisement call; Integrative taxonomy; Morphology; Phylogeny; Pulsed notes; State of Acre; Tadpole.

Associated data

figshare/10.6084/m9.figshare.12283973.v1

Grants and funding

This work was funded by the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico—CNPq (CNPq Universal grant n° 401120/2016-3 to Albertina Pimentel Lima). Miquéias Ferrão received a fellowship from CNPq (PDJ process 154325/2018-0) and an Edward O. Wilson Biodiversity Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University. This publication was supported by a grant from the Wetmore Colles Fund of the Museum of Comparative Zoology to Miquéias Ferrão. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.