Hylarana aurantiaca (Boulenger, 1904)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Ranidae > Genus: Hylarana > Species: Hylarana aurantiaca

Rana aurantiaca Boulenger, 1904, J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc., 15: 430. Holotype: BMNH 1947.2.2.92 (formerly 1903.9.26.1) according to Dutta, 1997, Amph. India Sri Lanka: 155. Type locality: "near Trivandrum, Travancore [Kerala]", southern India.

Rana (Hylorana) aurantiacaBoulenger, 1920, Rec. Indian Mus., 20: 127–130.

Rana (Hylarana) aurantiacaDubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 42, by implication.

Rana (Sylvirana) aurantiacaDubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 326.

Hylarana aurantiacaChen, Murphy, Lathrop, Ngo, Orlov, Ho, and Somorjai, 2005, Herpetol. J., 15: 237, by implication; Che, Pang, Zhao, Wu, Zhao, and Zhang, 2007, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 43: 3; by implication; Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 423. 

Sylvirana aurantiacaFrost, Grant, Faivovich, Bain, Haas, Haddad, de Sá, Channing, Wilkinson, Donnellan, Raxworthy, Campbell, Blotto, Moler, Drewes, Nussbaum, Lynch, Green, and Wheeler, 2006, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 297: 370; Fei, Ye, and Jiang, 2010, Herpetol. Sinica, 12: 34. See comment under Ranidae record.

Indosylvirana aurantiacaOliver, Prendini, Kraus, and Raxworthy, 2015, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 90: 190. 

English Names

Golden Frog (Daniel and Sekar, 1989, J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc., 86: 198; Daniels, 2005, Amph. Peninsular India: 228; Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Gururaja, and Bhatta, 2009, Rec. Zool. Surv. India, Occas. Pap., 302: 74; Das and Dutta, 1998, Hamadryad, 23: 65; de Silva, 2009, Amph. Rep. Sri Lanka Photograph. Guide: 88).

Trivandrum Frog (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 106).

Small Wood Frog (Daniels, 2005, Amph. Peninsular India: 231).

Trivandrum Golden-back Frog (Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Deepak, and Kulkarni, 2023, Fauna India Checklist, vers. 5.0 : 10).

Distribution

Southern Western Ghats, south of the Palghat Gap in Thiruvananthapuram and Kollam districts in the state of Kerala, India. See comment regarding records from Sri Lanka. 

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: India

Likely/Controversially Present: Sri Lanka

Endemic: India

Comment

Prior to the revision of Frost, Grant, Faivovich, Bain, Haas, Haddad, de Sá, Channing, Wilkinson, Donnellan, Raxworthy, Campbell, Blotto, Moler, Drewes, Nussbaum, Lynch, Green, and Wheeler, 2006, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 297, placed in Section Hylarana, subsection Hydrophylax, subgenus Sylvirana of Dubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 326. See accounts by Boulenger, 1920, Rec. Indian Mus., 20: 157, Daniel and Sekar, 1989, J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc., 86: 198. Biju, 2001, Occas. Publ. Indian Soc. Conserv. Biol., 1: 17, suggested that careful comparison of the Sri Lankan and South Indian populations are warranted. Chanda, 2002, Handb. Indian Amph.: 86–89, provided a brief account. Dutta, 1997, Amph. India Sri Lanka: 155, provided range, systematic comments, and partial taxonomic bibliography. Daniels, 2005, Amph. Peninsular India: 228–231, provided an account. See photograph, map, description of geographic range and habitat, and conservation status (as Rana aurantiaca) in Stuart, Hoffmann, Chanson, Cox, Berridge, Ramani, and Young, 2008, Threatened Amph. World: 501. Das and Dutta, 2007, Hamadryad, 31: 154–181, noted two larval descriptions in the literature. Kuramoto and Joshy, 2008, J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc., 105: 14–18, described the advertisement call. de Silva, 2009, Amph. Rep. Sri Lanka Photograph. Guide: 88, provided a brief account and color photograph. Ukuwela, 2009, Zootaxa, 2016: 67–68, reported on larval morphology in the Sri Lankan population.Sivaprasad, 2013, Common Amph. Kerala: 122–123, provided a brief account, photograph, and dot map for Kerala, India. Bopage, Wewelwala, Krvavac, Jovanovic, Safarek, and Pushpamal, 2011, Salamandra, 47: 173–177, reported the species in lowland forest in the Kanneliya Forest of southwestern Sri Lanka. Sreekumar and Dinesh, 2020, Rec. Zool. Surv. India, 120: 33–40, noted that records from Maharashtra, India, are in error. In the Hylarana aurantiaca group of Biju, Garg, Mahony, Wijayathilaka, Senevirathne, and Meegaskumbura, 2014, Contr. Zool., Amsterdam, 83: 269–335, who provided an account on pp. 289–294, and noted that the Hylarana aurantiaca group is restricted to the Western Ghats, by implicaion suggesting that records from Sri Lanka are based on misidentifications. 

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