Amolops ricketti (Boulenger, 1899)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Ranidae > Genus: Amolops > Species: Amolops ricketti

Rana ricketti Boulenger, 1899, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1899: 168. Syntypes: BMNH (2 specimens); BMNH 1899.4.24.73–74 (reregistered as 1947.2.3.14–15) according to museum records. Type locality: "Kuatun [=Guadun], a village about 270 miles from Foochow, in the [Kuatun] mountains at the North-west of the Province of Fokien [= Fujian], at an altitude of 3000 to 4000 feet or more", China.

Rana (Hylorana) rickettiBoulenger, 1920, Rec. Indian Mus., 20: 128, 216.

Staurois rickettiPope, 1927, Nat. Hist., New York, 27: 469; Noble, 1929, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 58: 291, 313.

Staurois ricketti rickettiLiu, 1950, Fieldiana, Zool. Mem., 2: 356.

Staurois ricketti minor Liu, 1950, Fieldiana, Zool. Mem., 2: 356. Holotype: FMNH 49411, by original designation. Type locality: "Mapien, about 3,000 feet altitude, Szechwan", China.

Amolops rickettiInger, 1966, Fieldiana, Zool., 52: 256, by implication; Zhao In Hu, 1985, in Frost (ed.), Amph. Species World: 455; Tian, Jiang, Wu, Hu, Zhao, and Huang, 1986, Handb. Chinese Amph. Rept.: 62; Fei, Ye, and Huang, 1990, Key to Chinese Amph.: 167; Che, Pang, Zhao, Wu, Zhao, and Zhang, 2007, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 43: 3.

Amolops (Amolops) rickettiDubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 321.

English Names

Chinese Sucker Frog (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 97).

South China Torrent Frog (Fei, Ye, and Jiang, 2010, Colored Atlas of Chinese Amph.: 414).

Distribution

Jiangxi and Fujian, possibly to southern Zhejiang and eastern Hunan, China, 400–1300 m elevation. See comment. 

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: China, People's Republic of

Endemic: China, People's Republic of

Comment

Starting about 2020 it was recognized that nominal Amolops ricketti is a species complex, so literature prior to that year should be used with caution. See accounts by Boulenger, 1920, Rec. Indian Mus., 20: 216; Pope, 1931, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 61: 558–562, and Bourret, 1942, Batr. Indochine: 387–390, as Staurois ricketti. See also Liu and Hu, 1961, Tailless Amph. China: 231–232. See accounts by Ye, Fei, and Hu, 1993, Rare and Economic Amph. China: 307; and Fei, 1999, Atlas Amph. China: 242–243.  Fei and Ye, 2001, Color Handbook Amph. Sichuan: 210, provided a brief account and illustration. Huang, 1990, Fauna Zhejiang, Amph. Rept.: 81–83, provided an account (as Staurois ricketti) for Zhejiang populations. Zhang and Wen, 2000, Amph. Guangxi: 71, provided an account for Guangxi (although these specimens are unlikely to be Amolops ricketti under current conceptions of that taxon). Fei, Hu, Ye, and Huang, 2009, Fauna Sinica, Amph. 3: 1565–1570, provided an account, figures, and range map, and included the species in their Amolops ricketti group. Fei, Ye, and Jiang, 2010, Colored Atlas of Chinese Amph.: 414–415, provided a brief account including photographs of specimens and habitat. Fei, Ye, and Jiang, 2012, Colored Atlas Chinese Amph. Distr.: 432–433, provided an account, photographs, and a range map. Shen, 2014, Fauna Hunan, Amph.: 303–306, provided an account for Hunan, China. Li, 2011, Amph. Rept. Guangdong: 62, provided a brief account for Guangdong, China, and photograph (although these specimens are unlikely to be Amolops ricketti under current conceptions of that taxon). Zhang, 2017, Amph. Rept. Fanjing Mts.: 138–140, provided taxonomic and natural history information for the Fanjing Mountains population in northeastern Guizhou, China (although these specimens are unlikely to be Amolops ricketti under current conceptions of that taxon). Xiao, Luo, Deng, Zhou, and Luo, 2019, J. Zhejiang Univ. (Agriculture & Life Sci.), 45: 736–745, noted that on the basis of mtDNA analysis that records of Amolops ricketii from the  northern  (Xishui, Kuankuoshui),  central (Huangping, Majiang), eastern (Jiangkou), and southeastern (Leigongshan, Danzhai) parts of Guizhou Province, China must be referred to Amolops sinensis. In the Amolops ricketti group of Zeng, Liang, Li, Lyu, Wang, and Zhang, 2020, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 146 (106753): 1–9, and Wu, Yan, Stuart, Prendini, Suwannapoom, Dahn, Zhang, Cai, Xu, Jiang, Chen, Lemmon, Lemmon, Raxworthy, Orlov, Murphy, and Che, 2020, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 144 (106701): 1–13, who discussed molecular phylogenetics. Pham, Do, Ngo, Tran, Ziegler, and Nguyen, 2020, Check List, 16: 1025–1041, provided a record of nominal Amolops ricketti from Hai Ha District, Quang Ninh Province, Vietnam, on the Guangxi, China, border (likely based on Amolops shihaitaoi or possibly Amolops tonkinensis). Zeng, Wang, Lyu, and Wang, 2021, Zootaxa, 5004: 152, provided a map of genetically-confirmed localities. In the Amolops ricketti group of Jiang, Ren, Lyu, Wang, Wang, Lv, Wu, and Li, 2021, Zool. Res., Kunming, 42: 574–591. Records from northern Vietnam,Y unnan and western Guangxi in literature prior to 2022 apply to Amolops shihaitaoi (see that record). Wang, Li, Du, Hou, and Yu, 2022, ZooKeys, 1112: 142, discussed relationships and mapped genetically-confirmed records and removed Amolops tonkinensis from the synonymy of Amolops ricketti on the basis of evidence.  

     

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