Taxonomic Status of the Spot-legged Treefrog in Southern Yunnan, Inferred from Mitochondrial DNA Sequences

Populations of the spot-legged treefrogs (Polypedates megacephalus) in China show significant morphological variation, but no has yet been conducted to investigate the correlation between morphological variation and genetic/ecological divergence. In this study, mitochondrial DNA sequences from the 12S rRNA gene (374 bp) were amplified from 25 individual spot-legged treefrogs from southern Yunnan, China. The phylogenetic analysis using Bayesian Inference determined two haplotype clades, different from those detected by Richards and Moore (1998). Our results suggest that the phylogenetic lineages reconstructed in this study are not correlated with morphology, thus indicating that the populations in southern Yunnan may be P leucomystax rather than P. megacephalus.