| Title | A new species of arboreal Rhinella (Anura: Bufonidae) from cloud forest of southeastern Peru |
| Publication Type | Journal Article |
| Year of Publication | 2007 |
| Authors | Chaparro, Juan Carlos, Pramuk Jennifer B., and Gluesenkamp Andrew G. |
| Journal Title | Herpetologica |
| Volume | 63 |
| Pages | 203-212 |
| Keywords | Bufonidae, Chaunus, margaritifer, Peru, Rhinella |
| Abstract | A new arboreal species of Rhinella is described from the humid montane forest of Manu National Park in the Cordillera Oriental of southern Peru. The new species can be distinguished from all known Rhinella by a unique combination of external and osteological characters as well as by molecular data. The new toad is compared to R. arborescandens and R. veraguensis with respect to external characters. On the basis of morphological and molecular data, the new taxon is closely related to R. chavin, R. nesiotes, and R. festae. Although DNA data indicate that a member of the R. veraguensis group (R. nesiotes) is its sister taxon, the new species is not closely related to other members of this species group (e.g., R. veraguensis). In addition, DNA data indicate that the R. veraguensis group as it currently is defined is paraphyletic. Until additional studies are completed on the phylogeny of these South American toads, we refrain from assigning the new taxon to a species group. |
| Commentary | This paper is an excellent demonstration of problems that arise from too rapid taxonomic revision. Ostensibly a species description, this paper in fact has major phylogenetic and taxonomic implications. Frost et al. (2006) chose to use a weak taxonomic sampling of Bufo which they found to be paraphyletic, as an opportunity not for more research into a difficult problem but instead to prematurely break up the genus. They elected to resurrect the genus Chaunus to include about 50 species of neotropical frogs including Bufo marinus. They placed the Bufo margaritifer group in the resurrected genus Rhinella. Frost et al. were fully aware of how tenuous their phylogeny was because they observed that if Rhinella turned out to be imbedded within their Chaunus, Rhinella would have priority. Now, less than a year later when already many publications have used Chaunus, the authors of this present paper show that indeed Rhinella is imbedded within Chaunus and they transfer all species of XXXXXXXXX lost |
| Citation Key | 387 |
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| ChaparroETAL2007Rhinella.pdf | 611.73 KB |
