Bufotes latastii (Boulenger, 1882)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Bufonidae > Genus: Bufotes > Species: Bufotes latastii

Bufo latastii Boulenger, 1882, Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus., Ed. 2: 294. Syntypes: BMNH 1947.2.21.28–30 and 1947.2.21.30A-B (formerly 1872.4.17.223–226, 72.4.17.371) and including animal illustrated on pl. 19, fig. 2 of the original publication; BMNH 1947. 2.21.28 designated lectotype by Stöck, Grosse, Schmid, and Steinlein, 1998, Zoology, Jena, 101: 76, and lectotype redescribed by Stöck, Günther, and Böhme, 2001, Zool. Abh. Staatl. Mus. Tierkd. Dresden, 51: 293. Type locality: "Ladak" (= Ladakh), India and Pakistan.

Bufo latastii latastii — Hemmer, Schmidtler, and Böhme, 1978, Zool. Abh. Staatl. Mus. Tierkd. Dresden, 34: 377. Stöck, Günther, and Böhme, 2001, Zool. Abh. Staatl. Mus. Tierkd. Dresden, 51: 295.

Bufo siachinensis Khan, 1997, Pakistan J. Zool., 29: 43. Holotype: BMNH 1990.94, by original designation, although Stöck, Schmid, Steinlein, and Grosse, 1999, Ital. J. Zool., 66: 230 and Stöck, Günther, and Böhme, 2001, Zool. Abh. Staatl. Mus. Tierkd. Dresden, 51: 295, cited personal communications from both BMNH ("this number has never been issued") and M.S. Khan to the effect that the specimen is not in the BMNH; presumably it has been retained in Khan's personal collection. Type locality: "seepage pools close to Shinu Village, on the left bank of River Shyok, 140 km east of Skardu, at the foot of Siachin Glacier, Baltistan, northeastern Pakistan, 76.65° E, 35.25° N, elevation 5238 m from sea level"; the veracity of this type locality discussed by Stöck, Günther, and Böhme, 2001, Zool. Abh. Staatl. Mus. Tierkd. Dresden, 51: 295. Synonymy by Stöck, Grosse, Schmid, and Steinlein, 1998, Zoology, Jena, 101: 76.

Pseudepidalea latastii — 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: 365.

Bufo (Bufotes) latastii — Dubois and Bour, 2010, Zootaxa, 2447: 25.

Bufotes latastii — Frost, 2013, Amph. Spec. World, Vers. 5.6. Required change because of non-monophyly of Bufo.

Common Names

Ladakh Toad (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 42; Khan, 2002, Bull. Chicago Herpetol. Soc., 37: 158; Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Gururaja, and Bhatta, 2009, Rec. Zool. Surv. India, Occas. Pap., 302: 10).

Lataste's Toad (Das and Dutta, 1998, Hamadryad, 23: 63).

Vertebral-banded Toad (Chanda, 2002, Handb. Indian Amph.: 24).

Siachine Toad (Bufo siachinensis [no longer recognized]: Khan, 2002, Bull. Chicago Herpetol. Soc., 37: 159).

Middle Asiatic Toad (Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Deepak, and Kulkarni, 2023, Fauna India Checklist, vers. 5.0 : 2). 

Distribution

Northern Pakistan in the Kashmir Valley; western Ladakh and western Himanchal Pradesh in India (see comment). 

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: India, Pakistan

Comment

In the Bufo viridis group of Inger, 1972, in Blair (ed.), Evol. Genus Bufo: 107, and the Bufo viridis subgroup of Stöck, Günther, and Böhme, 2001, Zool. Abh. Staatl. Mus. Tierkd. Dresden, 51: 291–295, who restricted the name to diploid frogs inhabiting a much smaller region than previously supposed. Hemmer, Schmidtler, and Böhme, 1978, Zool. Abh. Staatl. Mus. Tierkd. Dresden, 34, discussed the confusing taxonomic history of this diploid species, and showed a karyotype. Bioacoustic data were provided by Dubois and Martens, 1978 "1977", Bull. Soc. Zool. France, 102: 459–465; and Stöck, Frynta, Grosse, Steinlein, and Schmid, 2001, Asiat. Herpetol. Res., 9: 77–100. For karyotype see Stöck, Günther, and Böhme, 2001, Zool. Abh. Staatl. Mus. Tierkd. Dresden, 51: 292–293. Chanda, 2002, Handb. Indian Amph.: 24–25, and Khan, 2006, Amph. Rept. Pakistan: 43, provided a brief accounts (as Bufo latastii). Das and Dutta, 2007, Hamadryad, 31: 154–181, noted larval descriptions in the literature from brief to extended (as Pseudepidalea latastii).  Ficetola, Crottini, Casiraghi, and Padoa-Schioppa, 2010, North-West. J. Zool., Romania, 6: 1–12, discussed the habitat in Pakistan of Bufotes latastii (as Bufo). See discussion and map by Ficetola and Stöck, 2016, J. Biogeograph., 43: 703–715. Litvinchuk, Skorinov, Mazepa, and Borkin, 2018, Alytes, 36: 314–327, discussed and modeled the range of this diploid species, suggesting that all records of nominal Bufotes latastii from Tajikistan, and Himanchal Pradesh, India, are referable to other species. Dufresnes, Mazepa, Jablonski, Oliveira, Wenseleers, Shabanov, Auer, Ernst, Koch, Ramírez-Chaves, Mulder, Simonovo, Tiutenko, Kryvokhyzhar, Wennekes, Zinenko, Korshunov, Al-Johany, Peregontsev, Masroor, Betto-Colliard, Denoël, Borkin, Skorinov, Pasynkova, Mazanaeva, Rosanov, Dubey, and Litvinchuk, 2019, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 141: 1–25, summarized the phylogenetics and biogeography of this diploid species. Rais, Ahmed, Sajjad, Akram, Saeed, Hamid, and Abid, 2021, ZooKeys, 1062: 157–175, included this species in an identification key to the amphibian species of Pakistan as well as providing a photograph. Raj, Vasudevan, Aggarwal, Dutta, Sahoo, Mahapatra, Sharma, Janani, Kar, and Dubois, 2023, Alytes, 39–40: 8–11, reported on larval morphology of genetically-confirmed specimens from Ladakh, India. Parab, Chattopadhyay, and Lyngdoh, 2023, Zoos' Print J., 38: 11–13, provided records from western Himanchal Pradesh, India. Given the earlier statement by Litvinchuk et al. (2018) regarding records from Himanchal Pradesh, India, being possibly assignable to Bufotes zamdaensis, it would seem that genetic confirmation of these records is necessary (DRF). 

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