First Morphological Description of Rhacophorus orlovi (Anura: Rhacophoridae) from Yunnan, China

Abstract

Although Rhacophorus orlovi from China was once sampled in previous phylogenetic studies, up to now it has never been formally included in any list of Chinese amphibians, which could lead to a misunderstanding that R. orlovi has no accurate distribution in China. Here, we describe R. orlovi for the first time from China based on one specimen collected from Yunnan Province and compare it with the holotype of the species. Molecular evidence supports it belonging to R. orlovi and genetic divergence within R. orlovi ranges from 0 to 1.85%. Compared to the holotype, the specimen from Hekou, Yunnan, China shows some variations in both morphometric characters and color pattern.