Vol. 46 No. 3, 2007

Morphological Assessments and Phylogenetic Relationships of the Seychellean Frogs of the Family Sooglossidae (Amphibia: Anura)

Ronald A. Nussbaum¹ and Sheng-Hai Wu^2,*

¹Division of Amphibians and Reptiles, Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1079, USA
²Department of Life Sciences, National Chung-Hsing University, 250 Kuo-Kwang Road, Taichung 402, Taiwan

Ronald A. Nussbaum and Sheng-Hai Wu (2007) The frog family Sooglossidae is endemic to the Seychelles Is. in the Indian Ocean, and consists of 2 genera and 4 species, the monotypic Nesomantis and Sooglossus (3 species).  Many previous studies have suggested that Sooglossus sechellensis is more similar to Nesomantis thomasseti than to its congener, S. gardineri. Based on an extensive dataset of 188 morphological characters, we concluded that Nesomantis and S. sechellensis form a monophyletic group with the exclusion of S. gardineri (and S. pipilodryas).  We therefore have established a new genus, Sechellophryne, to accommodate the latter 2 species.

Key words: Nesomantis thomasseti, Sooglossus gardineri, Sooglossus pipilodryas, Sooglossus sechellensis, Sechellophyrne gen. nov.

*Correspondence: Tel: 886-4-22840319 ext. 711.  Fax: 886-4-22874740. E-mail:shwu@dragon.nchu.edu.tw