Account
What the sources say about this taxon, as written.
biology_ecology · 
Plazi
Natural history .—Found in rainforest patches of the North East of Madagascar . All individuals were found in or near streams in rainforest, including degraded primary forest, secondary forest, and narrow riparian forest fragments. In 2019, the riparian forest beside the village of Bemanevika was felled. Call .—The call of this species has not been recorded. Tadpoles .—The tadpole of this species has not been described.
description · Plazi
Identity and justification .—This lineage was newly identified in this study. It consists of frogs from the North East of Madagascar that form a mitochondrially homogeneous lineage that probably is the sister group of M. georgei ( Fig. 2 ; M. marintsoai sp. nov. is not included in the phylogenomic tree), with which it shares a unique Rag-1 haplotype ( Fig. 4 ). Despite the lack of unambiguous morphological differences to M. georgei and the absence of bioacoustic data for M. marintsoai sp. nov. , we here name this lineage as new species, given its enormous genetic divergence (7.6–9.3% uncorrected 16S distance to M. georgei ).
diagnosis · Plazi
Diagnosis .— Mantidacytlus marintsoai sp. nov. is a member of the M. fergusoni clade, and is probably the sister lineage of M. georgei , according to the 16S tree (it is not included in the phylogenomic analysis). See Table 4 for a list of diagnostic morphological characters. The combination of a moderate to large body size (male SVL 29 mm , female SVL 35–39 mm ), moderately tubercular dorsal skin, relatively large tympanum size in males (13% of SVL), absence of white spots on flanks, and absence of a white marking on the snout tip, distinguishes M. marintsoai sp. nov. from most species of the other clades ( Table 4 ). Two species from the M. ulcerosus clade ( M. ulcerosus and M. bellyi ) can be morphologically similar; these two species occur in the Sambirano and North West regions, and the distribution area especially of M. bellyi may overlap with that of M. marintsoai sp. nov. which is known from the North East; a distinction may be possible by the apparently more strongly developed foot webbing in M. bellyi and M. ulcerosus ( Table 4 ). Mantidactylus marintsoai sp. nov. shows similarities to species of the M. betsileanus clade but does not appear to occur sympatrically with any of them; in general, it has a more tubercular dorsum and seems to lack a distinct white marking on the snout tip which characterizes many species of the M. betsileanus clade ( Table 4 ). Within the M. fergusoni clade, a bioacoustic comparison is not possible due to the lack of call data for M. marintsoai sp. nov. ; the species might be distinguished from M. fergusoni , M. georgei and M. jahnarum by less developed foot webbing ( Table 4 ), and seems to differ from many specimens of M. georgei and M. jahnarum by the lack of a clear white marking on snout tip. For a distinction from other new species described herein, see the respective species accounts. A full list of molecular diagnostic sites in the 16S gene of M. marintsoai sp. nov. in pairwise comparisons to all other Brygoomantis species is provided as Supplementary appendix.