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We describe a new species of Physalaemus from central Brazil. It is characterized by the following combination of traits: medium-sized; snout subelliptical in dorsal view, varying between rounded and protruding in lateral view; head longer than wide; snout long; dorsolateral fold present; small inguinal gland associated with dark ocellus present; tarsal tubercle present; poorly developed tarsal fold present and supernumerary tubercles on feet absent. The advertisement call is a single note with eight harmonics lasting 0.7–1.0 s in duration and emitted at intervals of 0.6–5.8 s. The dominant frequency varies from 1.9 to 3.1 kHz. The occurrence of the new species is in open habitats (disturbed or preserved) in central Brazil.

Island populations are convenient models of large-scale evolutionary processes and provide natural replicates of evolution. Recently founded island populations also provide an opportunity to study populations derived from few individuals, and these populations, in particular, often show rapid diversification. Here we report morphological and molecular data for the tungara frog, Physalaemus pustulosus, from three different islands of Panama: Coiba, a large island with a rather old tungara frog population; Isla Grande, a small island with a fairly recent population of tungara frogs, and Barro Colorado Island (BCI), a large island artificially created by flooding to form the Panama Canal about 100 yr ago. Frogs from the two natural islands, but not those from BCI, were significantly larger than frogs from the mainland, which is consistent with the “island rule” stating that small species on islands tend to be larger while large species tend to be smaller than their mainland relatives. Genetic diversity, esti...

We describe a new species of leptodactylid frog of the genus Physalaemus from the lowlands of western Ecuador. It belongs to the P. pustulosus species group and differs from other group members in its smaller size, skin texture, tadpole characters, and advertisement call. The new species has wide variation in size and color pattern both at the intra- and inter-population levels. This variation matches that observed in P. montubio and P. randi, and render difficult its diagnosis on the basis of morphological features. A phylogenetic analysis of morphological characters shows that the new species belongs to a clade distributed west of the Andes in Ecuador and northern Peru, sister to (P. petersi + P. pustulosus). A phylogeny based on mtDNA shows that P. montubio and P. randi form a clade sister to (P. coloradorum + P. sp. nov.). The calls of these three species have two components with different acoustic features that arguably match the frequency sensitivity of the ear of conspecific females, in a manner si...

We describe two new species of the leptodactylid frog genus Physalaemus from the lowlands of western Ecuador. Both species belong to the P. pustulosus species group. They differ from other group members, except P. coloradorum, in their smaller size. They can be distinguished from P. coloradorum by their less tuberculate dorsal skin and a more depressed loreal region. The new species differ from each other markedly in advertisement call. Although the ranges overlap, body size, flank gland length, and parotoid gland length (relative to snout-vent length) are also significantly different. Overall the new species are similar in color patterns and body shape; they are difficult to diagnose from each other with morphological characters.

A new, brightly colored species of Physalaemus similar to P. deimaticus and P. rupestris is described from the Parque Estadual do Itacolomi, Municipality of Ouro Preto, State of Minas Gerais, southeastern Brazil. The new species is characterized by its small size (snout–vent length 23.2 mm in male, 26.2–26.6 mm in females) and by having the snout rounded in the dorsal view and protruding in profile; large inguinal glands, ovoid, light brown with a black ocellus outlined with white on their posterior half; light grayish brown dorsum with elongate longitudinal dark grayish brown stripes and blotches; venter white with gray mottling; and bright red on groin and ventral surfaces of arms, hands, thighs, tibiae, and feet.

We examined how male and female tungara frogs, Physalaemus pustulosus, respond to variation in the frequency spectrum of the chuck component of the advertisement call. We varied chuck frequency in two different ways. In the fixed frequency series, the sequence of calls within each series had chucks of the same dominant frequency. Different fixed-frequency series had chucks of different dominant frequencies designated as high, high–medium, medium, medium–low, or low frequency relative to variation in the test population. In the second varying frequency series, the sequence of calls varied in the chuck's dominant frequency such that the individual series had the same average frequencies as the high, high–medium, medium, medium–low, and low fixed-frequency experiments. Both males and females tended to respond more to lower-frequency chucks. The responses of both sexes to the same mean chuck frequency was similar to the fixed- and varying-frequency series of chucks.