Description of the tadpole of Phyllomedusa azurea from the Brazilian Cerrado, with a description of the internal oral morphology of Phyllomedusa oreades

Abstract

We present a description of the external morphology of Phyllomedusa azurea and describe the internal oral morphology of P. azurea and P. oreades from populations of the Brazilian Cerrado. We also present a comparison with the available descriptions of the external morphology of tadpoles from the P. hypochondrialis group and review the internal oral morphology of the Phyllomedusa genus. The tadpole of P. azurea is characterized by a tooth row formula of 2(2)/3(1), few submarginal papillae, and spiracle positioned ventrally. Phyllomedusa oreades has a diamond-shaped buccal floor, numerous pustulations randomly distributed throughout the buccal floor arena, and a triangular buccal roof. The variation observed in the morphology of P. azurea tadpoles highlights the need to understand how morphological variation affects traits used in species diagnosis and the extent to which this variation could be explained by resource use, geographic variation, and/or ontogeny.