Hydrophylax bahuvistara, a new species of fungoid frog (Amphibia: Ranidae) from peninsular India

Hydrophylax bahuvistara, a new species of fungoid frog, is described from peninsular India. It can be separated from its congeners based on a combination of characters including wider head, outline of snout in dorsal view truncated, finger and toe tips without lateroventral groove, foot moderately webbed, metatarsals of 4th and 5th toes closely set, outer metatarsal tubercle small, foot length less than or equal to half of snout vent length, dorsal parts of shank without glandular folds and sparse horny spinules, and heels touch each other when the legs are folded at right angles to the body. Genetically, H. bahuvistara forms a monophyletic group with H. malabaricus as a sister clade separated by a raw distance of 4.0 to 4.5% in the 16s rRNA gene. Morphometrically, H. bahuvistara forms a significantly different cluster from H. malabaricus and H. gracilis in Discriminant Analysis.