IVol. 6, pp. 69-72

Asiatic Hcrpctological ResearchJune 1995

A Study on Morphological Similarity between the Genera Nanorana andAltirana (Amphibia, Anura, Ranidae)

Shun-qing Lu and da-tong Yang
Kunming Institute of Zoology, Accidentia Sinica, Kunming, China
Abstract. -Through Wilk's stepwise discriminant analysis, 16 of 18 indices of Nanorana ventripunctata, N.
pleskei, and Altirana parkeri were selected and used in a numerical taxonomy study with their weights given as

W=Cxl/U. The result of clustering analysis of the Euclidean Distances between thethree species reveals that N. ventripunctata is more similar to A. parkeri than to N. pleskei in morphology.

the following formula:

Key words: Amphibia, Anura, Ranidae, Nanorana, Altirana, China, Transhimalaya Mountains, stepwise
discriminant analysis, numerical taxonomy.

TABLE 1

Number, locality, and altitude of species used.

.

NumberGroupsSpecies

N. ventripunctata
N. pleskei

2A. parkeri

310 M, 10 F
10 M, 10 F
10 M, 10 F

1Altitude

3350 m3260 mZhongdian, Yunnan

Kangding, Sichuan
Bashu, Xizang

4100m

HEW

Introduction

Nanorana ventripunctata, N. pleskei,and Altirana parkeri are three species offrogs in two genera that are distributed in theTranshimalaya Mountains of China. Exceptfor morphological identification andchromosome research, we know of no otherstudies on these frogs that has been
published.

(head(snout vent length),width)/SVL, SNL (snout length)/HEW,
BND (distance between noses)/HEL, BED(distances between eyes)/HEL, ELW (eyelidwidth)/HEL, EYD (eye diameter)/HEL,FED (distance between front angles ofeyes)/HEL, AHL (hand and front arm(front arm width )/HEL,length)/SVL,
HAL (hand length)/SVL, SVL/LFL (leglength, TIL (tibia length)/HEL, TIW (tibiaARW

TFL (tarsalia and footFOL(foot length)/SVL, NSLlength)ATSVL,width)/HEL,

Nanorana and Altirana have a close

Hu et al,relationship (Su et al, 1985:
characterssomeand1986),
distinguishing
between them are vague since the discoveryof N. ventripunctata (Fei and Huang, 1985).
It isnecessary to reexamine the two genera.

Inthispaper,

based on18

externaluse

the authorsmorphological indices,
stepwise discriminant analysis andnumerical taxonomy to compare the threespecies.

Materials and Methods(length from nose to the top of snout)/HEL,and SPN (snout process length)/HEL.

Results
After stepwise discriminant analysis,
sixteen of the 1 8 indices were selected, theirWilk's statistic measure(from the firstU

step of the stepwise discriminant analysis)
are shown in Table 2.

The weights of the 16 indices are givenby the following formula:

The number, locality, and altitude of thespecimens used are shown in Table 1.
Nineteen external morphologicalcharacters were measured from eachspecimen, and changed to eighteen ratios,i.e.

18 indices:

HEL (head length)/SVL© 1995 by Asiatic Herpetological Research

W=CxlUVol. 6, p. 70

Asiatic Herpetological Research

TABLE 2. Selected indices and their U after discriminant analysis.
Indices

FED

HAL

HEL

June 1995

Vol.6, p. 71

Asiatic Herpetological Research

June 1995.

A. parked

N. ventripunctata_ N. pleskei
0.8

1.00
FIG.

1.

0.4

0.6

0.0

0.2

The UPG MA phonogram of the three species based on Table 5.

Table 6. Some identification characters between the three species.

N. ventripunctata and Altirana parked

Nanorana pleskei

tympanum under skin, but visible;

tympanum and columella absent

columella exists
nasals separate, not connected withnasals connected with each other and connected

fTontal-parietal

with frontal-parietal

precoracoid ossified incompletely

precoracoid ossified completely

clavicle short, not attach epiconicoid

clavicle long, attach epiconicoid

the first low labial teeth of tadpole

the first low labial teeth of tadpole slightly shorter

shorter than the second obviouslythan the second

The Euclidean Distance is selected in thispaper to measure the morphologicaldifferences between the three frogs. Theformulais:

Dij= Vx(Xik-Xjk)2.

The

calculated Euclidean distances among thethree frogs are shown in Table 5.

Figure 1 detects that the distance
between N. ventripunctata and A parked isthe shortest. The two frogs meet together atthe distance 0.1703, then they meet with N.
pleskei at the distance of 0.8827. The
Nofsimilarity
morphologicalventripunctata and A parked is closer thanthat of N. ventripunctata and N. pleskei.
.

.

Discussion

Uptothepresent,

thedifferences

between the genera Nanorana and Altirana
reported on by Tian and Jiang (1986)
contained the most details. But the genus

Nanorana as they meant, did not contain N.

ventripunctata, so it was just the differences
between N. pleskei and A. parked that they
noted.

The characters of N. ventripunctata
show that this species is more similar to thegenus Altirana than to the genus Nanorana
The numericalas shown in Table 6.
ofthisresearch
paper and thetaxonomy
biochemical systematic study (Lu and Yang,1994) show the same results. It seems
logical to take ventripunctata out of genus
Nanorana and place it in genus Altirana, but
the biochemical systematic study reveals that
the Nei's (1972) genetic distances between

frogs are 0.30, 0.57, 0.57,
respectively, smaller than 1.05 obviously,
but larger than 0.15. We feel that thesedifferences are at the species level, not thegeneric level (Thorpe, 1983). Thinking ofthethreethe principle:

inorder to avoid moremonogenera, the interruption of a genus
with other genera should be anti-relativeVol. 6, p. 72

Asiatic Herpetological Researchwith the size of the genus, i.e. the numberof species contained in this genus, theauthors suggest that the genus Altirana becancelled and the species parkeri be placedin the genus Nanorana..

June 1995

LU, S. Q. AND D. T. YANG. 1994. A study ofrelationships among ranid frogs of the genera

Nanorana and Altirana
Mountains of China.

inthe Transhimalaya

Asiatic

HerpetologicalResearch. (In Press).

SU, C. Y., D. T. YANG, AND S. Q. LI.

1986.
Studies on vertical distribution of Amphibians in

AcknowledgmentsWe are grateful to Mr. Dingqi Rao forcollecting specimens together with one of us(Lu). Thanks also due to Mr. Ruliang Panand Fahong Yu for offering us the computer

program for stepwise discriminant analysis.

the middle section of the Hengduan Mountains.
Acta Herpetologica Sinica 1986, 5(2):134-144. (InChinese).

THORPE, J. P.

1983.

Enzyme variation, genetic

distance and evolutionary divergence inlevels of taxonomic separation.

relation toPp. 131-152. In G.

Oxford and D. Rollonson (Eds.), Protein
Adaptive and taxonomic
significance. Academic Press, London.
S.

Literature Cited

polymorphism:
FEI, L. AND Y. Z. HUANG. 1985. A new speciesof the genus Nanorana (Amphibia Ranidae) from

northwestern Yunnan, China.

Acta Biologica

Plateau Sinica 1985(4):71-75. (In Chinese).

HU, Q. X., Y. M. JIANG, AND E. M. ZHAO.

1985.

Studies on the influence of the Hcngduan Mountains

on the evolution of the amphibians.
Herpetologica SinicaChinese).

1985, 4(3):225-233.

Acta(InTIAN, W. S. AND Y. M. JIANG (EDITORS),ASSISTED BY G. F. WU, Q. X. HU, E. M. ZHAO,AND Q. Y. HUANG. 1986. Identification manual
for Chinese species of amphibians and reptiles.
Science Press, Beijing. 164 pp. (In Chinese).