Description of a new species of Pseudophilautus (Amphibia: Rhacophoridae) from southern Sri Lanka

• Main Authors: Sudesh Batuwita, Madura De Silva, Sampath Udugampala
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Wildlife Information Liaison Development Society 2019-01-01
• Series: Journal of Threatened Taxa
• Subjects: dediyagala; pseudophilautus rus; pseudophilautus silvaticus; lowland rainforest
• Online Access: https://www.threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/article/view/3903

We describe a new Pseudophilautus species, P. conniffae sp. nov. from southern Sri Lanka.  It was previously confused with Pseudophilautus rus (Manamendra-Arachchi & Pethiyagoda).   The new species differs from the latter by the combination of the following characters: fourth toe webbing to penultimate subarticular tubercle on inner and outer sides (vs. fourth toe webbing in between penultimate and anetpenultimate subarticular tubercles on inner and outer sides), presence of conical median lingual process (vs. absent), and black patches on the posterior flank, anterior and posterior edges of the thigh (vs. black patches on the anterior surface of the thigh).  Pseudophilautus conniffae sp. nov. may be sympatric with P. limbus (Manamendra-Arachchi & Pethiyagoda), which shares certain characters with the new species.  The new species is, however, distinguished from P. limbus by the following characters: having supernumerary tubercles on manus (vs. lacking), absence of frontoparietal ridges (vs. presence), fourth toe webbing to penultimate subarticular tubercle on both sides (vs. fourth toe webbing between penultimate and anetpenultimate subarticular tubercle on both sides), third toe webbing to distal subarticular tubercle on both sides (vs. distal subarticular tubercle on outer side and below penultimate subarticular tubercle on inner side), and having the dorsum light brown with dark brown patches (vs. black and yellow variegated pattern on dorsum).  The new species may be restricted to the southwestern wet zone of Sri Lanka.  It is compared with all known Pseudophilautus species and also provided with a field key to identify it from those species that are sympatric with it or inhabit the southwestern wet zone.