AmphibiaChina 中国两栖类.

Conservation Status (definitions)

IUCN Red List Status Account CITES No CITES Listing National Status None Regional Status None

Description
Leptobrachella jinshaensis is a small to medium sized leaf litter toad described from five adult males and no females. Those males have a snout-vent length range of 29.7 - 31.2 mm. The head is slightly longer than it is wide, with a rounded, slightly protruding snout that projects over the lower jaw. The nostrils are closer to the snout tip than the eye. The canthus is rounded and the loreal region is somewhat concave. The interorbital space is flat and slightly longer than the internarial distance. There is no pineal ocellus. The eyes are large, slightly shorter than the snout length, with vertical pupils. The distinct, round tympanum is slightly concave and smaller than the eye. The supratympanic ridge extends distinctly from the posterior corner of the eye, touching the dorsal edge of the tympanum, to the supra-axillry gland. The dorsal body is rough, with granules forming short longitudinal folds on the dorsal portion of the flanks. The ventrum is smooth with small, dense patches of granules on the ventral surface of the thighs and tibia. Distinct oval glands are present in the pectoral and femoral area. An incomplete line of ventrolateral glands is also visible. The forelimbs are slender and a little less than half as long as the snout-vent length. Both the inner and outer metacarpal tubercles are rounded with the inner being larger than the outer. The relative lengths of the unwebbed fingers are I < II <= IV < III with slightly swollen fingertips. There are no subarticular tubercles or nuptial pads. The hind limbs are again slender, with a tibia slightly longer than the thigh and approximately half the snout-vent length. When the limbs are held at right angles to the body the heels overlap, and when the leg is adpressed along the body the tibiotarsal articulation reaches the middle of the eye. The large inner metatarsal tubercle is oval while the outer metatarsal tubercle is absent. The relative length of the unwebbed toes is I < II < V < III < IV. The toes have a narrow fringe and end in round, slightly expanded tips. There are no subarticular tubercles. Adult males have a single large vocal sac (Cheng et al. 2021).

DIAGANOSIS:

Leptobrachella jinshaensis is most closely related to and can be found in the same region as L. bijie and L. chishuiensis. However, these three species have different advertisement calls with L. jinshaensis having a lower dominant frequency than the latter two, a longer intercall interval than L. bijie, and having two types of notes, which differentiates L. jinshanesis from the single type of note by L. chisiensis. The three species can also be differentiated by L. jinshaensis lacking webbing on the toes while the other two have rudimentary webbing. The relative hind limb lengths are also different with L. jinshaensis having heels that overlap when the limbs are held at right angles to the body and a tibiotarsal articulation reaching the middle of the eye when the limb is adpressed to the body. In L. bijie the heels just meet and L. chishuiensis’s tibiotarsal articulation reaches the tympanum or just beyond the tympanum. Lastly, L. jinshaensis males are significantly larger than L. bijie males. Of four other species - L. liui, L. oshanensis, L. purpuraventra, L. suiyangensis, and L. ventripunctata - found in Guizhou Province, the new species can be differentiated by several features. More specifically, L. jinshaensis is larger than L. ventripunctata. The shagreen dorsal skin with granules but without warts or large tubercles in L. jinshaensis differentiates it from L. liui, which has round turbercles. The longer hind limbs in L. jinshaensis, in which the heels overlap, differentiate it from L. purpuraventra and L. suiyangensis, which both have heels that just meet. Furthermore, the tibiotarsal articulation in L. purpuraventra only reaches the area between the tympanum and the eye. Leptobrachella jinshaensis also has narrow lateral fringes that differentiate it from L. liui, which has wide lateral fringes, and from L. oshanensis, which lack fringes. Lastly, the lack of toe webbing in L. jinshaensis differentiates it from L. ventripunctata (Cheng et al. 2021, see article for comparisons with other Leptobrachella).

COLORATION:

In life, L. jinshaensis has a light brown base color with distinct darker markings and irregular copper speckles, which gives it cryptic dorsal coloration. There is an inverted triangular mark between the eyes when viewed dorsally and a brown lateral line extends outward from both sides of the eye. There are dark bars on all four limbs, as well as the fingers and toes. The ventral side is pale with yellowish cream speckles on the stomach and extremities. The pectoral and femoral glands are white. The pupils have copper flecks. When preserved, the dorsal coloration fades and the bars become more distinct, and the ventral side becomes an opaque cream color (Cheng et al. 2021).

VARIATION:

There is slight variation in dorsal coloration between individuals, as well as variation in the appearance of the pectoral and ventrolateral glands (Cheng et al. 2021).

Distribution and Habitat

Country distribution from AmphibiaWeb's database: China

View distribution map in BerkeleyMapper.

At the time of the species description, L. jinshaensis was only known from the type locality, Lengshuihe Nature Reserve in Jinsha County, Guizhou Province of China. It is usually found near reedy streams and especially under rocks in Montane Forests (Cheng et al. 2021).

Life History, Abundance, Activity, and Special Behaviors
Leptobrachella jinshaensis has an advertisement call that consists of two types of notes. The total call duration is 117 - 156 ms with intercall intervals being 62 - 106 ms long and a dominant frequency between 4500 - 4688 Hz. Each type of note is itself made up of 2 - 3 notes. The first note type is at the beginning of the call and starts with low amplitude pulses that increase to a peak, after which the second type starts. The amplitude of the second note type then decreases towards the end of each note. The duration of the first note type is 35 - 71 ms and the second note type duration is 39 - 78 ms. The duration between notes is 18 - 40 ms (Cheng et al. 2021).

Larva
Members of the Leptobrachella genus exhibits indirect development and tadpoles in the genus display a fossorial, aquatic lifestyle, aided by their elongated body shapes, semi-calcified vertebrae, and muscular tails (Chen et al. 2018). However, larva for this species has not been described as of 2024.

Comments
Maximum Likelihood and Bayesian Inference analyses were conducted with 16s rRNA mtDNA and found L. jinshaensis to be sister to the clade composed of L. bijie and L. chishuiensis. The next most closely related species is L. suiyangensis (Cheng et al. 2021).

References
Chen, J. M., Poyarkov, N. A. Jr., Suwannapoom, C., Lathrop, A., Wu, Y.-H., Zhou, W.-W., Yang, Z.-Y., Jin, J.-Q., Chen, H.-M., Liu, H.-Q., Nguyen, T. Q., Nguyen, S. N., Duong, T. V., Eto, K., Nishikawa, K., Matsui, M., Orlov, N. L., Stuart, B. L., Brown, R. M., Rowley, J. L., Murphy, R. W., Wang. Y.-Y., Chi, J. (2018). Large-scale phylogenetic analyses provide insights into unrecognized diversity and historical biogeography of Asian leaf-litter frogs, genus Leptolalax (Anura: Megophryidae). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 124(2018), 162-171. [link]

Cheng, Y.-L., Shi, S.-C., Li, J., Liu, J., Li, S.-Z., and Wang, B. (2021). A new species of the Asian Leaf Litter Toad Genus Leptobrachella Smith, 1925 (Anura, Megophryidae) from northwest Guizhou Province, China. ZooKeys, 1021, 81–107. [link]

Species Account Citation: AmphibiaWeb 2024 Leptobrachella jinshaensis: Jinsha Leaf Litter Toad (English) <https://amphibiaweb.org/species/9338> University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. Accessed Nov 21, 2024.

Citation: AmphibiaWeb. 2024. <https://amphibiaweb.org> University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. Accessed 21 Nov 2024.

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