The first discovery of Polypedatesteraiensis (Dubois, 1987) (Rhacophoridae, Anura) in China.

ABSTRACT

Background: The genus of Polypedates Tschudi, 1838 currently comprises 25 recognised species with four of these species reported in Yunnan, China. Dubois (1987) speculated the distribution of P.teraiensis in China; however, there was no study carried out to confirm its distribution in the region. New information We herein describe P.teraiensis as a new national record, based on a specimen collected from Yunnan border region. Phylogenetically, our sequence clustered with the sequences of recognised P.teraiensis specimens from Bangladesh, Myanmar and India. The uncorrected pairwise distances between the specimens from China and other P.teraiensis localities was small, ranging from 0.0-0.7%, based on 16S rRNA gene. Therefore, we report P.teraiensis as a new species record for China.