Zhangixalus tunkui Kiew, 1987

Badli-Sham, Baizul Hafsyam, Syafiq, Muhamad Fatihah, Aziz, Mohd Shahrizan Azrul, Mohd Jalil, Natrah Rafiqah, Awang, Muhammad Taufik, Othman, Muhammad Nouril Ammin, Abdul Aziz, Anis Azira, Dzu, Khunirah, Abdol Wahab, Nurul Asyikin, Jamil, Nor Liyana, Ismail, Murni Azima, Wan Azman, Wan Ahmad Aidil, Xin Wei, Ooi, Jamaha, Nur Ain Nabilah, Aqmal-Naser, Mohamad, Fahmi-Ahmad, Muhammad, Shahirah-Ibrahim, Noor, Rizal, Syed Ahmad, Belabut, Daicus M., Kin Onn, Chan, Quah, Evan Seng Huat, Grismer, Larry Lee & Ahmad, Amirrudin B., 2023, A decade of amphibian studies (Animalia, Amphibia) at Sekayu lowland forest, Hulu Terengganu, Peninsular Malaysia, ZooKeys 1157, pp. 43-93 : 43

Zhangixalus tunkui Kiew, 1987

Fig. 11B Johore Flying Frog

Examine specimens.

UMTZCP110414-419.

Identification.

One individual of Zhangixalus tunkui was previously recorded in SRF. However, it was only photographed (UMTZCP110414-419, Fig. 11B ) and released back to the wild for it was mistaken to be an individual of Z. prominanus , which was only later identified as Z. tunkui by Evan S.H. Quah. Morphology of photographed individual matched description by Kiew (1987) and Leong (2004) based on toe webbing with reddish colouration between fourth and fifth toes (vs. third to fifth toes in Z. prominanus ). Photographed individual had body with pale and translucent green colouration; dorsum scattered with whitish spots; smaller SVL, less than 50 mm (M. Taufik Awang, pers. comm.); skin translucent; absence of skin flaps on along forearm; whitish line along the snout, canthus rostralis and around eyes.

Remarks.

The individual of this species was found at the flooded rock pools in SRF. This species is a new record for the amphibians in Hulu Terengganu.

From 14 species recorded in the first survey in 2003, the number of species had steadily increased to 18 species in 2008. The surveys continued in 2013 and recorded more species, with a total of 38 species in 2015. This trend of species discoveries kept increasing during the surveys up to the end of 2020. The results shown by the species accumulation curve generated from the list of species recorded between 2003 and 2018 show a constantly increasing trend (Fig. 12 ). The species accumulation curve has almost reached the asymptote, which indicates that our long-term surveys may have reached the true diversity of amphibians in SLF. The number of unique and duplicate species also kept decreasing over the years. However, even after our exhaustive fieldwork from 2015 to 2020, a few unique species such as Phrynella pulchra , Rhacophorus pardalis , Theloderma horridum , and Zhangixalus tunkui have remained unrecorded after their first discovery in 2013-2014. As for the records of amphibians in Hulu Terengganu District, this study contributes an additional 10 new records for this area, which now totals 70 species so far known (Table 2 ). The new records are Ichthyophis cf. asplenius , K. palmatissimus , Kaloula latidisca , Micryletta dissimulans , Microhyla superciliaris , Nyctixalus pictus , Polypedates discantus , Zhangixalus prominanus , Z. tunkui and Theloderma licin .

Figures

Figure 11. A Zhangixalus prominanus and B Z. tunkui.

Figure 12. The cumulative species discovery curve of the species (dotted line), species accumulation curve of replicated samples of the amphibians from previous and recent surveys (black line). Red line shows the estimated number of unique, and duplicate species (blue line) of amphibians from long term surveys in Sekayu lowland forest, Hulu Terengganu.