Resurrection of genus Nidirana (Anura: Ranidae) and synonymizing N. caldwelli with N. adenopleura, with description of a new species from China

The taxonomy of Babina sensu lato was controversial in the past decades. In this study, the phylogeny of genus Babina sensu lato was re-constructed based on genetic analysis, morphological comparison and advertisement call analysis. We found that Babina sensu stricto and previous subgenus Nidirana should be two distinct genera in the family Ranidae. N. caldwelli is confirmed to be a synonym of N. adenopleura because of the small genetic divergence and the lack of distinct morphological differences. A new species, Nidirana nankunensis sp. nov. is described based on a series of specimens collected from Mt. Nankun, Guangdong Province, China, which can be distinguished from other known congeners by having a behavior of nest construction, distinctive advertisement calls, significant divergence in the mitochondrial genes, and a combination of morphological characters. Currently, the genus Babina contains two species and the genus Nidirana contains eight species.