The researchers analyzed the frog call, physical, RNA and DNA analysis to determine it is a new rainfrog species.
Researchers have discovered and described a new species of rainfrog of the Breviceps genus. The fossorial frog is one of 20 species of frog in the Breviceps genus, with most of them occurring in South Africa.
It is different from its closest relative, Breviceps verrucosus, in that it has a different mouth position and the size of its inner and outer metatarsal tubercles differ as well. It is genetically different from others in the genus by 7.5 percent uncorrected p-distance in the mitochondrial 16S rRNA gene, the authors write in their study.
Holotype male Breviceps batrachophiliorum sp. nov. (SAIAB 141902) from Boston, KwaZulu-Natal Province: a – dorsolateral view; b – anterior view; c – ventral view; d – posterior view, showing heel to heel and vertebral lines; e – right hand; f – left foot. Photo by Louis duPreez
While Breviceps batrachophiliorum looks closely like Breviceps verrucosus, its call is more similar to B. bagginsi. The frog’s call was first heard in November 1999 by Marius Burger in the South African town of Boston, KwaZulu-Natal. Burger heard three separate calls at three localities and all sounded like B. bagginsi, but no specimens were found to confirm the species. Burger consulted Les Minter and tentatively assigned the frog calls to that of B. bagginsi. The recordings were never analyzed and no specimens were collected at the time.
The Breviceps genus
In 2018, researchers Nick Evans, Dylan Leonard and Cormack Price traveled to the same town and collected six male frogs that were larger and were an unknown species. These frogs were similar in appearance to B. verrucosus but had a different frog call. This cast doubt in the Frog Atlas record of B. bagginsi established in 1999 at this location. More calls and video of the unknown frog species were recorded in seven other localities. In all, 23 frog calls were recorded and analyzed and the researchers determined that this was a new species based on the frog calls, physical analysis and molecular, DNA and RNA analysis.
The study, “A new Rain Frog (Anura: Brevicipitidae; Breviceps) from the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands, South Africa” can be read on the African Journal of Herpetology website.
