Date:
June 16, 2020
Source:
Pensoft Publishers
Despite
the active ongoing taxonomic progress on Madagascar's frogs, the amphibian
inventory of this hyper-diverse island is still very far from being complete.
The known diversity of the diamond frog genus Rhombophryne in Madagascar has
increased significantly (more than doubled!) over the last 10 years, but still
there are several undescribed candidate species awaiting description. New
species are constantly being discovered in Madagascar, often even within
already well-studied areas. One such place is the Montagne d'Ambre National
Park in northern Madagascar.
Montagne
d'Ambre National Park is widely known for its endemic flora and fauna,
waterfalls and crater lakes, and considered to be a relatively well-studied
area. Yet, only two studies have been published so far on the reptiles and
amphibians of the Park.
Serving
the pursuit of knowledge of the herpetofauna in the region, Germany-based
herpetologist Dr. Mark D. Scherz (Bavarian State Collection of Zoology,
Technical University of Braunschweig, University of Konstanz) published a
description of a new diamond frog species: Rhombophryne ellae, in the
open-access journal Zoosystematics and Evolution.
"As
soon as I saw this frog, I knew it was a new species," shares Dr. Scherz,
"The orange flash-markings on the legs and the large black spots on the
hip made it immediately obvious to me. During my Master's and PhD research, I
studied this genus and described several species, and there are no described
species with such orange legs, and only few species have these black markings
on the hip. It's rare that we find a frog and are immediately able to recognise
that it is a new species without having to wait for the DNA sequence results to
come back, so this was elating."
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