ABSTRACT
We describe a new species of the Dendropsophus decipiens Group, morphologically most resembling D. haddadi but genetically more closely related to D. oliveirai and likely endemic from the Atlantic Forest biome, northeastern Brazil. The new species can be distinguished from all species of the D. decipiens Group based on the combination of morphological features, advertisement call and phylogenetic position based on mitochondrial DNA gene sequences. The new species emits simple calls in series of 3-9 notes, each with 9-29 pulses, and dominant frequency varying from 5578-6422 Hz, and exhibit a minimum of 8% genetic distance (16S mitochondrial gene) in comparison to its congeners. The new taxa represent the sixth species of the D. decipiens Group, which likely harbors more undescribed taxa, corroborating the view that Neotropical species richness is fairly underestimated.
Subject(s)
Anura , Animals , Brazil , Forests , Phylogeny , Vocalization, AnimalABSTRACT
Information about the snake diversity and their natural history from the Atlantic forest domain in Brazil refer mostly to inland forests than to coastal region. Within the state of Bahia, this knowledge is concentrated to the southeastern coastal stretch. Herein we report on the diversity of snakes from the restinga, ombrophilous forest and anthropogenic environment from the northern Atlantic coast of Bahia. We sampled nine sites for three years and visited four museum collections. Furthermore, we provide anecdotal natural history information, voucher analyses, literature complements, and a key to fascilitate species identification. We report a total of 774 snakes belonging to 50 species and 23 new distribution records for northeastern coast of Bahia, supplemented by new data on feeding and reproduction. The number of detected species is similar to numbers obtained in comparable studies from other Brazilian ecoregions. This study reports and focuses for the first time on all known species of snakes from the northeastern coast of Bahia.
