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Acoustic Characteristics and Systematic Relationships of Arboreal Microhylid Frogs of the Genus Metaphrynella from Malaysia

1996; The Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles; Volume: 30; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/1565185

1937-2418

Masafumi Matsui, Hoi-Sen Yong, Kunio Araya, Abang Abdul Hamid,

Digital Imaging for Blood Diseases

Metaphrynella Parker, 1934 is a genus of two species in the subfamily Microhylinae, family Microhylidae (Frost, 1985) found in rainforests in southeast Asia. Metaphrynella pollicaris (Boulenger, 1890) is confined to the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra, whereas M. sundana (Peters, 1867) occurs only in Borneo (Inger, 1966). The taxonomic relationship of these two species has not been studied adequately, and the phylogenetic relationships of this genus are not clear. Metaphrynella pollicaris has long been noted for its habit of calling from tree holes (Flower, 1896). Previous descriptions of its calls are anecdotal (e.g., Grandison, 1972), and a sonagram provided by Dring (1979) lacked a detailed description. Similarly, only verbal descriptions are available for the Bornean M. sundana (Inger and Stuebing, 1989). On the other hand, acoustic characteristics of some microhylines have been well studied, and their evolutionary significance in some species has been discussed by Blair (1955) and Loftus-Hills and Littlejohn (1992). The genera hitherto analyzed, however, are mostly confined to the New World ones (Blair, 1955; Nelson, 1973), and only a few genera from the old World have been studied (Heyer, 1971; Nelson, 1973; Kuramoto, 1987). The acoustic data are thus still insufficient for outlining the phylogenetic relationships of the genera in this subfamily. In order to understand better the systematic relationship of Metaphrynella pollicaris and M. sundana, as well as their position in the Microhylinae, we analyzed their acoustic characteristics and herein discuss phylogenetic problems. Recordings of calls were made in the field using a cassette tape recorder (Sony TC-D5) with an external microphone (Sony ECM-23F). Ambient temperature was measured at the time of recording. Calls of M. pollicaris were recorded in peninsular Malaysia, first at Fraser's Hill (altitude 1200 m) on 11 December 1991, both in the field and in a room after they are captured. Air temperatures at the time of recording were 19.3 C and 18.7 C, respectively. Additional recordings at 23.7 C were made on 15 January 1992 on Genting Highland (altitude 900 m). Calls of M. sundana were recorded at the Headquarters of the Mulu National Park (altitude 50 m), on 27 and 29 July 1993 at air temperatures of 24.9 and 23.7 C, respectively. All voucher specimens are temporarily stored at the Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies, Kyoto University (KUHE) and will be deposited at the University of Malaya and the Forset Department, Sarawak. The recorded calls were analyzed using computer programs, SoundEdit Vers. 2 or SoundEdit Pro (MacroMind-Paracomp, Inc.) by a Macintosh computer. In the following description, note gap means the time from the beginning of one note to the beginning of the next note. Mann-Whitney U tests were performed to detect the presence or absence of differences in the frequency distributions. The significance level was set at 0.05.