In an effort to study the systematic affinities and specieslevel phylogenetic relationships of the enigmatic anurans variably assigned to the genera Ingerana or Limnonectes(family Dicroglossidae),we col ected new molecular sequence data for five species including four Himalayan taxa,Limnonectes xizangensis,Lim.medogensis,Lim.alpina,Ingerana borealis and one southeast Asian species,I.tasanae,and analyzed these together with data from previous studies involving other ostensibly related taxa.Our surprising results demonstrate unequivocal y that Lim.xizangensis,Lim.medogensis and Lim.alpina form a strongly supported clade,the sister-group of the family Australasian forest frog family Ceratobatrachidae.This discovery requires an expansion of the definition of Ceratobatrachidae and represents the first record of this family in China.These three species are distinguished from the species of Ingerana and Limnonectes by the:(1)absence of interdigital webbing of the foot,(2)absence of termina discs on fingers and toes,(3)absence of circumargina grooves on the fingers and toes,and(4)absence of tarsal folds.Given their phylogenetic and morphologica distinctiveness,we assign them to the oldest available generic name for this clade,Liurana Dubois 1987,and transfer Liurana from Dicroglossidae to the family Ceratobatrachidae.In contrast,Ingerana tasanae was found to be clustered with strong support with the recently described genus Alcalus(Ceratobatrachidae),asmall clade of otherwise Sundaic species;this constitutes a new record of the family Ceratobatrachidae for Myanmar and Thailand.Final y,Ingerana borealis clustered with the "true" Ingerana(family Dicroglossidae),for which the type species is I.tenasserimensis.
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