Museum specimens show Pristimantis milpe spent a century under the wrong name
A recheck of 19th-century type specimens in London found that a common frog in Ecuador and Colombia had been classified under the wrong name for more than a century. Pristimantis subsigillatus became a synonym once the old specimens were reassigned, while the living populations were described as Pristimantis milpe. The peer-reviewed ZooKeys study places the newly named species across more than 67,000 square kilometres in the two countries.
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19th-century specimens exposed a misplaced name
A team led by Santiago R. Ron re-examined 19th-century frog specimens held at London's Natural History Museum. It concluded that the type specimens carrying the name Pristimantis subsigillatus belonged to the same species as Pristimantis latidiscus, which had been described four years earlier. P. subsigillatus therefore became a junior synonym of P. latidiscus. Living populations in Ecuador and Colombia that had long been recorded as P. subsigillatus did not match those old type specimens. The researchers described the populations as a separate species and named it Pristimantis milpe.[1], [2]
The newly named species spans a broad Choco belt
Pristimantis milpe occupies more than 67,000 square kilometres across western Ecuador and southern Colombia. Records extend from sea level to an elevation of 1,200 metres. The species is not confined to primary forest; it also appears in secondary forest, banana plantations and urban parks. That broad distribution is unusual compared with many newly described species that occur rarely or within narrow ranges. Its nighttime call is readily detected, and the frog remained hidden by a classification error despite being a common animal collected by researchers for decades.[1], [2]
The peer-reviewed description corrected a common species' name
The peer-reviewed ZooKeys description rests on 19th-century specimens held at London's Natural History Museum. Santiago R. Ron is the first author, and the team also includes Poulette Paredes-Aguirre, Diego A. Paucar and Virginia Tech doctoral student Jhael Ortega. The authors note that a frog both common and widespread remained under the wrong classification for a long time. Although the name Pristimantis milpe is new, the study does not report a previously unseen animal: it links populations collected for decades and readily detected by their nighttime call to the correct type specimens.[1]
