Spotted like a jaguar: a new tree frog from the southern Amazon
A new tree frog species of the genus Scinax has been described for the southern Amazon region by Miquéias Ferrão and colleagues. The description, which derives from the doctoral project of Mr. Ferrão, was published recently in ZooKeys.
Scinax is one of the most diverse and widespread genera of the family Hylidae, with about 70 currently recognized species distributed from Mexico to Argentina and Uruguay. Only 28 species are known to occur in the Amazon region, but many more are likely to exist. In recent years a high diversity of Scinax was detected in the forests of the Madeira-Purus interfluve, in the southern Amazon, where the new species was found, and at least seven other confirmed candidate species remain unnamed.
Adult specimens were collected at night in four forest localities in the middle and southern part of the Madeira-Purus interfluve, in the states of Amazonas and Rondônia. Tadpoles were collected in a forest pond at one of the localities and assigned to the new species by molecular barcoding. Interspecific genetic distances to other Scinax species were determined through a 16S rRNA marker.
The description of the new species is based on external morphology and live coloration of 16 adult males and females, as well as of tadpoles, and the acoustic characteristics of the advertisement call of one male.
The new species was named Scinax onca, for the characteristic dark brown spots and markings on its dorsum and belly, that resemble those of a jaguar, Panthera onca. The name is also reminiscent of the frequent encounters the authors had with jaguars during field work.
Scinax onca is distinguished from all 28 other known Amazonian Scinax by colour, size and/or morphological characters.
The doctoral project of Mr. Ferrão at the graduate program in Ecology of INPA is supervised by Albertina Lima and Igor Kaefer.
The images show an adult male and the tadpole of Scinax onca sp.n. The adult was photographed in the field, at km 350 of the BR-319 highway, in the south of Amazonas state, and is the holotype of the new species.
