Sphaerotheca pashchima, a new species of burrowing frog (Anura: Dicroglossidae) from western India

Abstract

Sphaerotheca pashchima, a new species of burrowing frog, is described from western India. It can be diagnosed from all its congeners based on a combination of characters including interorbital width less than upper eyelid width, snout to nostril distance less than half of eye diameter, nostril nearer to snout than to eye, internarial distance greater than inter orbital distance, snout rounded, dorsum rough and warty, finger 2 length equal to or less than finger 4 length, finger 1 less finger 3 length, outer metatarsal tubercle absent, tibio tarsal tubercle absent, length of inner metatarsal tubercle more than three times the inner toe length and reduced webbing. We also provide 16S rRNA gene sequence for S. pashchima sp. nov. and show that it is genetically distinct from species of Sphaerotheca for which genetic data is available.

Keywords

• amphibia
• molecular phylogeny
• taxonomy.