New microhylid frog genus from Peninsular India with Southeast Asian affinity suggests multiple Cenozoic biotic exchanges between India and Eurasia.

ABSTRACT: Anurans in Peninsular India exhibit close biogeographical links with Gondwana as well as Laurasia, often explainable by the geological history of the Indian subcontinent; its breakup from Gondwanan landmasses followed by long isolation that resulted in diversification of endemic lineages, and subsequent land connections with Asia that enabled dispersal of widespread groups. Although widely distributed, the frog subfamily Microhylinae mostly comprises of geographically restricted genera found either in Southeast and East Asia or Peninsular India and Sri Lanka. Here we report a previously unknown microhylid from the Western Ghats in Peninsular India with closest relatives found over 2,000 km away in Southeast Asia. Based on integrated evidence from mitochondrial and nuclear DNA, adult and ta

SUBMITTER: Garg S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6374391 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature