Male Advertisement Call of the Endangered Leptobrachella tengchongensis (Anura: Megophryidae) from Mount Gaoligongshan, Yunnan Province, China

We present the first description of the acoustic characters of the endangered Tengchong leaf litter toad (Leptobrachella tengchongensis), aiming to inform future ecological studies of the species and taxonomic studies in the genus Leptobrachella. A total of 1179 calls, belonging to 6 adults male individuals, were recorded using TASCAM DR-40 digital sound recorder from its type locality in May 2015 and then analyzed using Raven Pro v.1.6.1 software. The advertisement call of male L. tengchongensis consists of primary advertisement call and secondary advertisement call. The primary advertisement call is invariably composed of two notes and has a call duration of 61 +/- 5 ms (23-87 ms, n = 1142). The secondary advertisement call is composed of 3-10 notes (mean 5.25 +/- 1.41 notes/call, n = 37) with a call duration of 90 +/- 6 ms (37-127 ms, n = 37). The mean inter-call interval is 212 +/- 121 ms (88-1121 ms, n = 1092). An introductory note is absent in advertisement calls and the dominant of calls is 4.1-4.8 kHz (at 20.). We discuss the interspecific and intraspecific variations on advertisement calls in L. tengchongensis and among Leptobrachella species, and provide a summary on the major acoustic characters of all Leptobrachella species occurring north of the Isthmus of Kra.

Automated summary

This study provides the first description of the acoustic characters of the endangered Tengchong leaf litter toad, including the composition of advertisement calls and frequency range. The advertisement call of male L. tengchongensis consists of two primary notes, while the secondary call consists of 3-10 notes, with an average inter-call interval of around 212 milliseconds.