Description of two new species of Rhinella (Anura: Bufonidae) from the lowlands of the Guiana shield

The Rhinella margaritifera complex is characterisized by the presence of many cryptic species throughout its wide distribution, ranging from Panama to Bolivia and almost entire Amazonia. French Guiana has long been thought to harbor two species of this group (Rhinella margaritifera and one unnamed species), though a recent survey using molecular data indicated as many as five lineages. At least three of these lineages do not appear to interbreed despite broad sympatry and thus could be easily regarded as distinct species according to both the biological and phylogenetic species concepts. We examined morphological variation of four of these lineages, along with acoustic data to determine whether these characters discriminate these goups. These analyses, combined with published data of other Rhinella species, indicated that two of these lineages represent previously unnamed species. Two of the remainings are allocable to R. margaritifera while the status of the fifth is still unclear because so far it is morphologically indistinguishable from R. castaneolica. Copyright © 2007 Magnolia Press.