A new species of Hyloxalus Jiménez De La Espada, 1871 ''1870'' (Anura: Dendrobatidae: Hyloxalinae) from a cloud forest near Bogotá, Colombia, with comments on the subpunctatus clade

Abstract

A new species of frog of the genus Hyloxalus from a high Andean forest of the central parts of the Cordillera Oriental, Colombia is recognized and described using integrative taxonomy. Using phylogenetic analyses of 2590 base pairs (bp) of mitochondrial DNA, Hyloxalus felixcoperari sp. nov. was shown to belong to a lineage of the subpunctatus clade, part of a subgroup that comprises high altitude-occurring lineages (subgroup I) and sister taxa of H. subpunctatus sensu stricto from the Bogotá plateau region. The genetic distance between both taxa is 2.1% and 5.1% for the 16S and cytochrome b gene fragments respectively. Hyloxalus felixcoperari sp. nov. is a medium-sized frog, which can be distinguished morphologically from H. subpunctatus by having dark throat and chest and unwebbed toes, and bioacoustically by emitting an advertisement call consisting of trill-like calls repeated at a rate of 50 – 104 repititions/min, with a dominant frequency ranging from 3028.9 – 3861.2 Hz. Molecular dating analysis revealed that the already known lineages of the subpunctatus clade subgroup I from the middle Cordillera Oriental of Colombia, recently diverged during the lower Pleistocene – Upper Pliocene, most probably due to environmental fluctuations. Threats and main aspects of the natural history of this new species including breeding and habitat are reported in this article.