PROC. BIOL. SOC. WASH. 106(1), 1993, pp. 51-56 DESCRIPTION OF THE ADVERTISEMENT CALL AND RESOLUTION OF THE SYSTEMATIC STATUS OF LEPTODACTYLUS GRACILIS DELATTINI MULLER, 1968 (AMPHIBIA: LEPTODACTYLIDAE) Linnette Garcia Perez and W. Ronald Heyer Abstract.— The advertisement call oi Leptodactylus gracilis delattini Muller is described from Campeche, Santa Catarina, Brazil and compared with calls from five populations of L. gracilis from mainland Brazil and calls of the closely related L. furnarius and L. plaumanni. Based on comparison of call data and re-examination of the holotype, Leptodactylus gracilis delattini Miiller, 1968 is considered to be a strict junior synonym of Leptodactylus gracilis (Dumeril andBibron, 1841). Leptodactylus gracilis delattini was de-scribed by Paul Muller in 1968, based on three individuals collected on Ilha Cam-peche, Santa Catarina, Brazil (27°42'S, 48°28'W), a tiny island located just off the southeastern part of the island of Santa Ca-tarina (Fig. 1). Leptodactylus gracilis delat-tini was described as a subspecies on the basis of general morphological similarities with L. gracilis, but Miiller (1968) knew of no geographically proximate specimens of L. gracilis on the large island of Santa Ca-tarina or the mainland. Muller based his taxonomic decision solely on the basis of morphology, as he did not have any re-cordings of the advertisement call of the Ilha Campeche form. Later (Heyer 1978), L. g. delattini was considered a strict junior syn-onym of L. gracilis, again based on mor-phology, although the Ilha Campeche form was considered somewhat morphologically distinctive. The advertisement call of L. gracilis de-lattini and calls of geographically proximate populations of L. gracilis are now available. The purposes of this paper are to describe the call of L gracilis delattini, to compare L. g. delattinVs call with available calls from other populations of L. gracilis, and to reas-sess the systematic position of L. g. delat-tini. In order to facilitate this latter aspect, we use the advertisement calls of L. fur-narius and L. plaumanni, hypothesized close relatives of L. gracilis (see Heyer 1978), for comparative purposes. Materials and Methods Recordings analyzed for this paper are: USNM (archives at National Museum of Natural History) Tape 247, cut 1, Lepto-dactylus gracilis delattini, recorded from USNM 319151, Brazil, Santa Catarina, Campeche (Fig. 1, locality 1), 22:10 h, 25°C air, by W. Ronald Heyer on 31 Dec 1991, using a Marantz portable tape recorder; ASN (Archivo Sonoro Neotropical) Tape AJC 27, cut 10, Leptodactylus gracilis, an unvouchered recording from Brazil, Santa Catarina, Sao Jose, Tubarao (Fig. 1 , locality 2), 22:00 h, 23°C air, 24°C water, by Adao J. Cardoso, on 13 Feb 1982, using a Uher reel-to-reel portable tape recorder; USNM Tape 1 1 , cut 1 , Leptodactylus gracilis, recorded from USNM 217781, Brazil, Santa Catarina, Santo Amaro da Im-peratriz (Fig. 1, locality 3), 21:10 h, 22°C air, by W. Ronald Heyer on 19 Nov 1979; ASN Tape IS 3, cut 11, Leptodactylus gracilis, an unvouchered recording from
Description of the advertisement call and resolution of the systematic status of Leptodactylus gracilis delattini Müller, 1968 (Amphibia: Leptodactylidae)
BioStor
