Data from: Genetics, morphology, advertisement calls, and historical records distinguish six new polyploid species of African clawed frog (Xenopus, Pipidae) from West and Central Africa

African clawed frogs, genus Xenopus, are extraordinary among vertebrates in the diversity of their polyploid species and the high number of independent polyploidization events that occurred during their diversification. Here we update current understanding of the evolutionary history of this group and describe six new species from west and central sub-Saharan Africa, including four tetraploids and two dodecaploids. We provide information on molecular variation, morphology, karyotypes, vocalizations, and estimated geographic ranges, which support the distinctiveness of these new species. We resurrect Xenopus calcaratus from synonymy of Xenopus tropicalis and refer populations from Bioko Island and coastal Cameroon (near Mt. Cameroon) to this species. To facilitate comparisons to the new species, we also provide comments on the type specimens, morphology, and distributions of X. epitropicalis, X. tropicalis, and X. fraseri. This includes significantly restricted application of the names X. fraseri and X. epitropicalis, the first of which we argue is known definitively only from type specimens and possibly one other specimen. Inferring the evolutionary histories of these new species allows refinement of species groups within Xenopus and leads to our recognition of two subgenera (Xenopus and Silurana) and three species groups within the subgenus Xenopus (amieti, laevis, and muelleri species groups).,mtDNA_simpleThis is a nexus file that includes alignments of mitochondrial DNA sequences that were analyzed in this studymtDNA_simple.nxsThis is an input file for BEAST that was generated from the nexus file and that was used to analyze the mitochondrial DNA sequence alignmentmtDNA_conThis is a consensus tree generated from the BEAST run of the mitochondrial DNA data.R1R2_pileup_simpleThis is a nexus file that includes concatenated data from cloned and directly amplified sequences of the autosomal genes RAG1 and RAG2. These data were generated from genomic DNA and the concatenation combines sequences that are putatively syntenous (co-linear) on the same chromosome.R1R2_pileup_simple.nxsThis is the xml file that was generated from the RAG1 and RAG2 concatenated nexus file that was used as input for the BEAST analysis.R1R2conThis is the consensus tree from the BEAST analysis of the concatenated sequence data from RAG1 and RAG2.Male vocalization of X. allofraseri specimen MCZ A-148176Male vocalization of X. allofraseri specimen MCZ A-148176allofraseri_bioko.6.0.27.22.2.3_MCZ A-148176.wavMale vocalization of X. eysoole; specimen MCZ A-148129 or MCZ A-148130Male vocalization of X. eysoole; specimen MCZ A-148129 or MCZ A-148130 (we are not sure which of these individuals was recorded)MCZ A-148129_or_MCZ A-148130_bamenda3(2).8.58f..wavMale vocalization of X. fischbergi.Male vocalization of X. fischbergi. No specimen ID is associated with this recording.MW.10907T3.single click.wavMale vocalization of X. kobeli; field ID number BJE3073Male vocalization of X. kobeli; field ID number BJE3073kobeli_BJE3073.3.53.i.bpfil.wavMale vocalization of X.kobeli; field ID number BJE3157Male vocalization of X.kobeli; field ID number BJE3157kobeli_BJE3157.14.01.b.bpfil.wavMale vocalization of X. parafraseri; specimen ID CAS 249961Male vocalization of X. parafraseri; specimen ID CAS 249961yaounde4.18.34.f.wavMale vocalization of X. mellotropicalisMale vocalization of X. mellotropicalis; no specimen ID is associated with this recording.mellotropicalis.wav.one call.wavMale vocalization of X. calcaratusMale vocalization of X. calcaratus; no specimen is associated with this recording.Sil.sp.32.40-55.e.wav,