Thursday, June 4, 2015

[Herpetology • 2015] First Record of Amolops cremnobatus from Thanh Hoa Province, Vietnam, including an extended Tadpole Description and The First Larval Staging for Amolops


Figure 3. Amolops cremnobatus from the Pu Hu Nature Reserve. A) The male specimen IEBR A.2013.106 in dorsal view;  B) the female specimen ZFMK 95592 and the male specimen ZFMK 95593 in axial amplexus.
Figure 9. Breeding habitat of Amolops cremnobatus in the Pu Hu Nature Reserve. A) Egg clutches deposited directly on a rock wall in a strong-current cascading stream.
Figure 10. Breeding habitat of Amolops cremnobatus in the Pu Hu Nature Reserve. A) Congregation of hatchlings and larvae at stages 25 and 31–35 on a wet rock surface in a cascading stream.


Abstract
We record Amolops cremnobatus Inger & Kottelat, 1998 for the first time from Thanh Hoa Province, northcentral Vietnam, which also represents the northernmost record of this species. Specimens of A. cremnobatus were found at three limestone karst forest sites within the Pu Hu Nature Reserve at altitudes between 277 and 526 m a.s.l. Adults and larval stages matched the diagnostic morphological characters of the original description of Acremnobatus, such as small size, tarsal gland present, vomerine teeth present, tympanum distinct, nuptial pads distinctly developed in males, and tadpoles with upper jaw sheath divided and labial teeth row formula 10(5–10)/6(1). Besides natural history notes for both developmental stages and adults, we present an extended larval description based on a tadpole at Gosner (1960) stage 31. The tadpole belongs to the exotrophic, lotic, gastromyzophorus larval type after McDiarmid & Altig (1999) and possesses the typical characteristics of a fast-water stream dweller, i.e., a large abdominal sucker disc, thick tail musculature, and reduced fins. In addition, the first larval staging for the genus Amolops in general is provided in this paper, based on the species Acremnobatus.

Key words. Amphibia, Anura, AmolopsA. cremnobatus, new record, tadpole description, larval staging, natural history, north-central Vietnam.


Figure 9. Breeding habitat of Amolops cremnobatus in the Pu Hu Nature Reserve. A) Egg clutches deposited directly on a rock wall in a strong-current cascading stream; B) congregation of hatchlings at stage 24 on a rock in a torrent.
Figure 10. Breeding habitat of Amolops cremnobatus in the Pu Hu Nature Reserve. A) Congregation of hatchlings and larvae at stages 25 and 31–35 on a wet rock surface in a cascading stream; B) remnants of the sticky, gelatinous layer, which surrounded the larvae on a very strongly washed-over rock.


Cuong The Pham, Anika Dogra, Anna Gawor, Anna Rauhaus, Georg Kloeble, Truong Quang Nguyen and Thomas Ziegler. 2015. First Record of Amolops cremnobatus from Thanh Hoa Province, Vietnam, including an extended Tadpole Description and The First Larval Staging for AmolopsSALAMANDRA. 51(2); 111–120.

Inger, R.F. and Kottelat, M. 1998. A new species of ranid frog from Laos. Raffles Bulletin of Zoology. 46(1): 29-34. http://lkcnhm.nus.edu.sg/rbz/biblio/46/46rbz029-034.pdf