The ability to recognize species is a fundamental aspect of biological science and has important implications for conservation and ecology. The Polypedates leucomystax complex: P. braueri (Vogt 1911), P. megacephalus (Hallowell, 1861), P. mutus (Smith, 1940), P. impresus (Yang, 2008), and P. leucomystax (Gravenhorst, 1829) (Orlov et al. 2001; Kuraishi et al. 2012), is a group notoriously difficult to identify because of their very similar color pattern and body size (Kuraishi et al. 2012).
To ascertain the taxonomic status of these species, Dr.LI Jiatang and Prof.WANG Yuezhao from Chengdu Institute of Biology of Chinese Academy of Sciences investigated the historical relationships among representative samples based on ~ 2 kb of nucleotide sequences from the mitochondrial 12S rRNA, tRNAvaline, and 16S rRNA genes. The phylogeny resolved five well supported lineages (A, B, C, D and E) in the P. leucomystax complex.Polypedates impresus from Yunnan, China, Polypedates cf. mutus and Polypedates cf. megacephalus from Guangxi and Yunnan, China, and Laos constructed Clade C, which is monophyletic.
Meanwhile, in order to recognize the unique position of this clade, researchers considered P. impresus in Clade C as a valid species. Following the phylogeny, Chinese Polypedates, corresponding to the other four clades, should include four species: P. mutus (Clade A); P. braueri (Clade B); P. impresus (Clade C) and P. megacephalus (Clade D). Polypedates leucomystax (Clade E) is mainly distributed in the Malaysia, Indonesia and Philippines.
The studies entitled “Molecular Phylogeny Supports the Validity of Polypedates impresus Yang 2008” has been published in Asian Herpetological Research 2013, 4(2). http://www.ahr-journal.com/