Search

I describe a new species of hylid frog of the genus Nyctimystes from Fergusson Island off the southeastern peninsula of New Guinea. The new species is distinctive in being of moderate size, lacking a tubercle or lappet on the heel, and in having a vocal sac and slits, palpebral venation of vertically oriented lines with few cross-connections, basal webbing between the fingers, orange-yellow flash markings in the groin and hidden surfaces of the thighs, and a venter heavily flecked with brown. The new species is currently known only from the type locality, but it may range more widely across the D'Entrecasteaux Islands. It is morphologically most similar to N. persimilis from the mountains of the adjacent mainland of New Guinea.

A new species of Scinax is described from open formations of the coastal plains (Restingas) within the Tropical Atlantic Domain in northeastern Brazil. The new species most resembles S. auratus (Wied-Neuwied) and S. juncae Nunes and Pombal, and is diagnosed by the dorsal pattern of dorsolateral white stripes in dark-brown background, interocular white transversal stripe, and small scattered white blotches; snout rounded in dorsal view and profile; dorsal skin smooth; vocal sac smooth; presence of a few tubercles in a longitudinal way from the internal metatarsal tubercle to the heel; advertisement call with 7–8 notes; call dominant frequency 1.38 kHz. This new species can be easily distinguished from S. auratus and S. juncae by the different dorsal pattern, morphological traits, and advertisement call.

We describe two new species of Bryophryne from the Region of Cusco, Provincia de La Convencion in southern Peru, increasing the number of currently known Bryophryne to eight. One of the new species is the second known species of Bryophryne that has a tympanic annulus and tympanic membrane. Males of this species have vocal slits, a vocal sac, and call from inside moss. It is readily distinguished from all its congeners by having a blackish-brown venter with yellow, orange, or pale pink blotches. This species is found at elevations of 3800-3850 m in the puna along the road from Vilcabamba to Pampascona. The second new species has the venter orange and pale gray mottled in males, whereas the venter is black and pale gray mottled in the single female. It was found inside bunches of the Peruvian feather grass (Stipa ichu) in the puna of Abra Malaga next to the road at an elevation of 4000 m. A map showing the type localities of all currently known species of Bryophryne is presented.

During intraspecific interactions involving males, females and subadults, acoustic as well as visual signals were observed in the diurnal frog Phrynobatrachus krefftii. Strikingly, interactions between adult males are highly dominated by inflations of the bright yellow subgular vocal sac without sound production. We studied the signaling behavior in males of P. krefftii at the Amani Nature Reserve, Usambara mountains, Tanzania, from November 2001 to March 2002. Under nonmanipulated conditions, we registered 641 male-male interactions involving 31 individuals during 323 hours of observation. Most (496 or 77 % ) inflations of the vocal sac were purely visual; the remainder (145 or 23%) of the signals were bimodal, and accompanied by sound production. To test whether exclusive visual signaling can be evoked under experimental conditions, we introduced tethered males into the visual field of 28 residents, registering the elicited responses over 10 minutes after the introduction. Unimodal (i.e., exclusive visu...

Made available in DSpace on 2022-04-29T08:44:48Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2014-03-01 We describe a new species of Pseudopaludicola endemic to the Caatinga ecoregion of northeastern Brazil. The new species is characterized morphologically by small size, lack of T-shape terminal phalanges, smooth upper eyelids, presence of abdominal and vocal sac folds, light cream-colored vocal sac, and short hind limbs with tibia-tarsal articulation reaching the eye. The tadpole has a globular body shape, low tail fins, and a ventral oral disc bordered by a single row of marginal papillae with a wide anterior gap and two ventrolateral gaps; oral formula: 2(2)/2(1). The advertisement call consists of a well-defined sequence of notes comprising three nonconcatenated pulses, each with long interpulse intervals (111 ± 21 ms) and average note duration of 238 ± 31 ms. The mean dominant frequency is 5636 ± 300 Hz, and increases from the first to the last pulse in each note. The advertisement call easily distinguishes the new species from all other congeners for which calls are known. Departamento de Botânica, Ecologia e Zoologia (DBEZ) Laboratório de Anfíbios e Répteis (LAR) Universidade Federal Do Rio Grande Do Norte, Campus Universitário, Lagoa-Nova, 59078-970, Natal, RN Laboratório de Vertebrados Terrestres Instituto de Ciências Biológicas Universidade Federal Do Rio Grande, Avenida Itália, km 8, Vila Carreiros 96.203-900, Rio Grande, RS Laboratório de Herpetologia Unidade Academica de Ciencias Biologicas e Programa de Pos-graduacao em Ciencias Florestais CSTR/Universidade Federal de Campina Grande (UFCG), CEP 58708-110, Patos, PB Laboratório de Herpetologia Departamento de Zoologia Instituto de Biociências, Universidade Estadual Paulista Avenida 24 A, 1515, Bairro Bela-Vista, 13506-970, Rio-Claro, SP DBEZ Centro de Biociências Universidade Federal Do Rio Grande Do Norte, Campus Universitário, Lagoa-Nova, 59078-970, Natal, RN

In the majority of anuran species, acoustic signals are the dominant mode of inter- and intrasexual communication. Male calls are always accompanied by the movement of a more or less conspicuous vocal sac—a potential visual cue. Reed frogs possess a striking vocal sac with a colorful patch of gland tissue clearly visible once the vocal sac is inflated during acoustic signaling. To investigate the visual signal function of vocal sac and gular gland, we presented male Spotted Reed Frogs (Hyperolius puncticulatus) with unimodal and multimodal signal playbacks of conspecific rivals in their natural habitat and recorded their behavioral responses. We found no difference in receiver response to unimodal advertisement call stimuli and to multimodal stimulus presentations of calls combined with visual signals of an artificial vocal sac with or without a gular patch, moving synchronously or asynchronously with the call playback. The inflations of a vocal sac with a colorful gular patch did not alter recei...