Re-description of the tadpole of Pleurodema somuncurensis (Cei, 1969) (Amphibia: Anura)

BARRASSO, D. A.; COTICHELLI, L.; ALCALDE, L.; BASSO, N. G.

ZOOTAXA

MAGNOLIA PRESS

Lugar: Auckland; Año: 2013 vol. 3681 p. 192 - 196

1175-5326

The monotypic genus Somuncuria was erected by Lynch (1978) on the basis of external morphology and osteology of the adults of Telmatobius somuncurensis Cei, 1969. In addition, Lynch remarked a general resemblance between Somuncuria and Pleurodema. The recent phylogenetic analysis by Faivovich et al. (2012) recovered Somuncuria nested into Pleurodema and closely related to Pleurodema bufoninum. According to Faivovich et al. (2012), these species have nearly identical sequences and additional study is required to establish populations identity. Pleurodema somuncurensis inhabits thermal springs at mid altitudes (500?800 ma.s.l.) in a restricted geographic range at Meseta de Somuncurá, Río Negro Province, Argentina (Cei, 1969). The external larval morphology of Pleurodema somuncurensis was briefly described by Cei (1970) in the context of a larval morphology account of the genus Telmatobius. Later, Lavilla & Scrocchi (1986) and Lavilla (1988) provided additional information of external larval features of P. somuncurensis, but in the context of the patagonian genera formerly referred as ?Lower Telmatobiinae?. Recently, we studied a sample of larvae of Pleurodema somuncurensis and noticed some inconsistencies with the description by Cei (1970), mainly in regard to the oral disc configuration. The present work describes in detail the external larval morphology of P. somuncurensis and discusses its morphological traits in the context of the recently proposed phylogeny of the genus by Faivovich et al. (2012).