A new species of the genus Hyla (Amphibia: Anura: Hylidae) from the Dabie Mountains, Anhui, China

Hyla tsinlingensis (Liu and Hu, 1966), is endemic to China, and is widely distributed in the Qinling and Dabie Mountains. Previous studies have suggested that genetic differentiation and geographical isolation exist between the Qinling Mountains population and Dabie Mountains population of H. tsinlingensis, and that the Dabie Mountains population is a cryptic species. Several Hyla specimens were collected from the Dabie Mountains of western Anhui Province, China during herpetological surveys from 2022‒2024; these specimens belonged to a species previously identified as H. tsinlingensis. Herein, we utilized phylogenetic analyses, morphological comparisons, and advertisement call comparisons, revealing significant differences from those of other known congeners; thus, we describe them as a new species. The discovery of this species implies that there are currently 18 identified species in the genus Hyla, 7 of which are found in China.