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| Odorrana lipuensis
Mo, Chen, Wu, Zhang and Zhou, 2015
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Abstract
A new species of the genus Odorrana is described from a completely dark karst cave of northeastern Guangxi, southern China. The new species, Odorrana lipuensis sp. nov., can be distinguished from its congeners by a combination of the following characters: medium size (SVL: 40.7–47.7 mm in males, 51.1–55.4 mm in females); tips of all but first finger expanded with circummarginal grooves; smooth, grass-green dorsum with irregular brown mottling; pineal body invisible; throat to upper abdomen with gray mottling; dorsal surfaces of limbs with brown bands; dorsolateral fold absent; tiny spinules on lateral body, temporal region, and anterior and posterior edge of tympanum; white nuptial pad present on finger I; males lacking vocal sacs; females having creamy yellow eggs, without black poles. Uncorrected sequence divergences between O. lipuensis sp. nov. and all homologous 16S rRNA sequences of Odorrana available on GenBank is equal to or greater than 4.9%. Currently, the new species is only known from the type locality. monophyletic group (Chen et al., 2013). All are known to be associated with mountain streams except O. wuchuanensis, which occurs in dark caves. During 2013–2014, eight Odorrana specimens were collected inside a completely dark karst cave in Lipu County, Guangxi Province, China. Morphologically, these specimens most closely resemble O. yizhangensis and O. schmackeri (Fei et al., 2009, 2012), but differ from O. yizhangensis, O. schmackeri and all other Odorrana from China and adjoining countries. They occur in a similar environment to O. wuchuanensis, inhabiting a dark cave, but are morphologically very different from O. wuchuanensis. Herein, we describe this population as a new species of Odorrana. 2. Materials and Methods 2.1 Sampling During 2013 and 2014, fieldwork was carried out in northeastern Guangxi, China (Figure 1A). Specimens were collected by hand, euthanized and fixed in 10% formalin and subsequently transferred to 75% ethanol for storage. Muscle tissues from three individuals were sampled and preserved in 100% ethanol for DNA extraction prior to fixing in formalin. All specimens and
Keywords: Odorrana lipuensis sp. nov., karst cave, Guangxi, southern China
Type locality: a completely dark karst cave of Lipu County, Guangxi, China (182 m a.s.l.)
Etymology: Named after Lipu County, Guangxi
Yunming Mo, Weicai Chen; Huaying Wu, Wei Zhang and Shichu Zhou. 2015. A New Species of Odorrana inhabiting complete darkness in A Karst Cave in Guangxi, China. Asian Herpetological Research. 6(1); 11–17. DOI: 10.16373/j.cnki.ahr.140054
