Vogue or adaptive character? A tadpole’s goatee helps to distinguish two cryptic treefrog species of the genus Boophis
Roger-Daniel Randrianiaina, Rocío Navarro Antúnez, Julia Canitz, Florian Forth, Inga Lemme, Brezo Rodríguez, Hagen Rinas, Robert Thänert, Paul Tröger, Natascha Westphal, Andrea Willim, Katharina C. Wollenberg, Axel Strauß, Miguel Vences.
(Herpetology. pp. 165-173; published online 08. October 2009)
Abstract. We describe the tadpole of an undescribed candidate species of tree frog from Ranomafana National Park in the Southern Central East of Madagascar, Boophis sp. aff. boehmei “Ranomafana”. This frog, in its adult stage, is almost indistinguishable from its allopatrically distributed close relative Boophis boehmei but differs from that species by a substantial divergence in mitochondrial DNA. The tadpole of B. sp. aff. boehmei “Ranomafana” is a stream-adapted, exotrophic larva of a relatively generalized morphology. However, its third posterior keratodont row is extremely short, with an average of only 7 keratodonts. This constitutes a distinct difference to B. boehmei, and as far as known to all other species of Boophis. This feature is constant across various localities, thus probably providing a relevant taxonomic character to recognize the distinctness of B. sp. aff. boehmei “Ranomafana” at the species level
Julia Canitz 