by Clive Brignull » Sat Jul 25, 2015 9:48 pm
Well how can I end it there....As i'm sure you are aware, historically, and at the time of the capture in question, the eastern tree frog, Hyla orientalis, was not distinguished from H. Arborea (Linnaeus, 1758). It wasn't until the research of Stöck et al. (2008), on the molecular data of treefrogs in south-eastern Europe and western Anatolian H. arborea populations, that it gained individual species recognition, therefore splitting the H. arborea species. Further studies into this topic, Gvozvik (2010), Gul et al., (2012) have similarly recognised differences in mtDNA, rhodopsin and tyrosinase data between not only H. arborea and H. orientalis species but also H. savignyi. Along somewhat related lines, Kaya and Simmons (1999) amongst others have additionally managed to distinguish between H. arborea and H. savignyi species through bioacoustic studies, however, I have not been able to find relevant literature to suggest a difference between H. arborea and H. orientalis calls. While all of these studies may indeed help to identify individual species in the lab, such data is obviously unachievable at the field level through observation. As such, it must thusly fall primarily on both your personal knowledge of the characteristics of the species, and the location of the find in regards to its distance from introgression zones, as the further out from an introgression zone you travel, the greater the probability of the species being formerly identified (Verardi et al., 2009) (which in this case, was on the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria, near to the Romanian border,which I presume to be well within the distribution zone of H. orientalis). Thusly, and in relation to my original query that started this topic thread, is there any means in which to ID the treefrog species that I found in the above mentioned location?