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| Nidirana cangshanensis Liu, Hou & Rao, 2025 |
Abstract
A new species of the genus Nidirana Dubois, 1992 is described from Cangshan Mountain, Dali Prefecture, Yunnan Province, China. The new species is morphologically most similar to N. pleuraden (Boulenger, 1904) and N. occidentalis Lyu, Yang & Wang, 2020, but it can be distinct from the latter two species by having a relatively shorter and wider head, relatively larger eyes, relatively smaller tympana, relatively much shorter foot, and a much greater difference in body size between males and females. Phylogenetically, the new species differs from its congeners by a genetic divergence of 2.6–8.6% and 6.1–14.1% in 16S and COI genes, respectively. This study further emphasizes that the diversity of the genus Nidirana is still severely underestimated.
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| Holotype (KIZ2024164) of Nidirana cangshanensis sp. nov. in life. (A) Dorsal view; (B) left view; (C) ventral view; (D) right view. |
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| Paratypes of Nidirana cangshanensis sp. nov. in life. (D–F) the male KIZ2024171; (G–I) the male KIZ2024174; (J–L) the female KIZ2024166. |
Nidirana cangshanensis sp. nov.
Diagnosis. Body size medium, SVL 43.6–52.1 mm in adult males and 59.7–64.1 mm in adult females; head relatively short, HDL/SVL 0.34–0.36; head length approximately equal to head width, HDL/HDW 0.99–1.05; eye relatively large, ED/HDL 0.29–0.33; tympanum relatively small, TD/HDL 0.17–0.20, TD/ED 0.52–0.71; tip of every digit not dilated; lateroventral groove absent on every digit; foot short, FTL/SVL 0.52–0.57; tibio-tarsal articulation reaching between tympanum and eye or at eye; heels just meeting; posterior of dorsal skin rough with tubercles; a pair of subgular vocal sacs in breeding males; single nuptial pad present on first finger in adult males; suprabrachial gland large and smooth.
Etymology. The specific name cangshanensis refers to the type locality Cangshan Mountain, in Dali Prefecture, Yunnan Province, China. We suggest the English common name to be “Cangshan Mountain Music Frog” and the Chinese common name to be “苍山琴蛙 (Pinyin: cāng shān qín wā)”.
Shuo Liu, Mian Hou and Dingqi Rao. 2025. A New Species of the Genus Nidirana Dubois, 1992 (Anura: Ranidae) from Yunnan Province, China. Ecologica Montenegrina. 83; 175-190. DOI: doi.org/10.37828/em.2025.83.18
