The poverty of adult morphology: Bioacoustics, genetics, and internal tadpole morphology reveal a new species of glassfrog (Anura: Centrolenidae: Ikakogi) from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia

Abstract

Ikakogi is a behaviorally and morphologically intriguing genus of glassfrog. Using tadpole morphology, vocalizations, and DNA, a new species is described from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (SNSM), an isolated mountain range in northern Colombia. The new taxon is the second known species of the genus Ikakogi and is morphologically identical to I. tayrona (except for some larval characters) but differs by its genetic distance (14.8% in mitochondrial encoded cytochrome b MT-CYB; ca. 371 bp) and by the dominant frequency of its advertisement call (2928–3273 Hz in contrast to 2650–2870 Hz in I. tayrona). They also differ in the number of lateral buccal floor papillae, and the position of the buccal roof arena papillae. Additionally, the new species is differentiated from all other species of Centrolenidae by the following traits: tympanum visible, vomerine teeth absent, humeral spines present in adult males, bones in life white with pale green in epiphyses, minute punctuations present on green skin dorsum, and flanks with lateral row of small, enameled dots that extend from below eye to just posterior to arm insertion. We describe the external and internal larval morphology of the new species and we redescribe the larval morphology of Ikakogi tayrona on the basis of field collected specimens representing several stages of development from early to late metamorphosis. We discuss the relevance of larval morphology for the taxonomy and systematics of Ikakogi and other centrolenid genera. Finally, we document intraspecific larval variation in meristic characters and ontogenetic changes in eye size, coloration, and labial tooth-rows formulas, and compare tadpoles of related species. Ikakogi tayrona has been proposed as the sister taxon of all other Centrolenidae; our observations and new species description offers insights about the ancestral character-states of adults, egg clutches, and larval features in this lineage of frogs.