Leptobrachium aryatium sp. nov. is different from others in its genus in that it has a bicolored iris that features an inverted, "fiery orange" v shape on the top of its iris while the rest of the iris is jet black.
Researchers have discovered a new species of frog from the India’s Garbhanga Reserve Forest in Assam. The frog, Leptobrachium aryatium sp. nov. has a snout to vent length oof 49-55mm in males with the females much larger at 53.2 to 61.65mm. It is different from others in its genus in that it has a bicolored iris that features an inverted, “fiery orange” v shape on the top of its iris while the rest of the iris is jet black.
The researchers, Jayaditya Purkayastha of Guwahati-based NGO Help Earth; Dipankar Dutta of the University of Science and Technology, Meghalaya; Jayanta Gogoi of Arya Vidyapeeth College, and Saibal Sengupta of Assam Don Bosco University, determined the frog is a new species based on its mitochondrial 16S rRNA gene. The gene, the researchers say, confirms it is a sister species to its clade that comprises L. sylheticum and L. smithi.
The genetic divergence ranges from 2.0 to 2.3 percent and 3.7 to 4.3 percent respectively. The researchers also compared acoustic calls of the species with its sister species and determined that the calls of Leptobrachium aryatium sp. nov. differed in call duration, frequency range and amplitude patterns.
The frog was initially studied in 2004 when it was named Leptobrachium smithi. The researchers looked at old data and compared that data with recent data and included that the frog was new to science.
An abstract of the research paper, “A new species of Leptobrachium Tschudi, 1838 (Anura, Megophryidae) from Northeast India” can be read on the Zootaxa website.
