Editorial Type:
Article Category: Research Article
 | 
Online Publication Date: 21 Oct 2020

Identification and Species Delimitation of the Enigmatic Marsh Frog Pulchrana rawa (Matsui, Mumpuni, and Hamidy, 2012): Second Confirmed Specimen and First Country Record for Malaysia

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Page Range: 282 – 288
DOI: 10.1670/19-132
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ABSTRACT

Pulchrana rawa is a peat swamp specialist that was described from eastern Sumatra in 2012 based on a single specimen. Since then, no confirmed records have been forthcoming; thus, virtually nothing is known about this species. Recent fieldwork at peat swamp forests in southwestern Peninsular Malaysia led to the discovery of a frog that morphologically resembled P. rawa. Despite having relatively high mitochondrial divergence (6.6%) that was consistent with interspecific divergences of other closely related species, results from species delimitation analyses indicated that the Malaysian specimen was conspecific with P. rawa. In addition to extending the geographic distribution of this species to a different country, we also provide the first quantitative characterization of its call. This study provides novel insights into the distribution and natural history of this enigmatic species that will inevitably aid in threat assessments and conservation efforts.

Copyright: Copyright 2020 Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles 2020
Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.

Maximum likelihood phylogeny (left) and distribution map (right) for Pulchrana rawa. Numbers at nodes represent UFB support values. Star = type locality; triangle = putative sample from Peninsular Malaysia; square = unconfirmed report; red polygon = Riau Archipelago (specific locality is unknown).

Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.

Dorsal (A) and ventral (B) views of the Malaysian specimen. The red box highlights the humeral gland (C), whereas (D) and (E) are ventral profiles of the right hindlimb and forelimb, respectively.

Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.

Distribution of intra- and interspecies mitochondrial divergences (16S uncorrected p-distances) within the swamp-dwelling clade of Pulchrana.

Fig. 4.
Fig. 4.

Comparative spectrogram and corresponding oscillogram of the advertisement vocalization of Pulchrana cf. rawa from Riau Archipelago (A) and Peninsular Malaysia (B): sample of five calls and intercall intervals recorded from one individual call each.

Fig. 5.
Fig. 5.

Peat swamp forest habitat of UMTZC 1735 at Ayer Hitam Utara Forest Reserve, Segamat, Johor (A), and photograph of the specimen in life (B).

Contributor Notes

7 Corresponding Author. E-mail: cko@nus.edu.sg
Accepted: 16 Jan 2020
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