Duttaphrynus himalayanus (Günther, 1864)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Bufonidae > Genus: Duttaphrynus > Species: Duttaphrynus himalayanus

Bufo melanostictus var. himalayanus Günther, 1864, Rept. Brit. India: 422. Syntypes: BMNH. BMNH 1853.8.12.31, and 1858.6.24.1 considered syntypes by Inger, 1985, in Frost (ed.), Amph. Species World: 48; BMNH 1853.8.12.31, considered a syntype by museum records; syntypes discussed by Dubois and Ohler, 1999, J. South Asian Nat. Hist., 4: 148, who noted that several other specimens had been in the syntypic series, and designated BMNH 1858.6.24.1 as lectotype. Type locality: "in the Himalayas (in Sikkim and Nepal)"; lectotype from "Nepal".

Bufo himalayanusBoulenger, 1882, Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus., Ed. 2: 305.

Bufo abatus Ahl, 1925, Zool. Anz., 63: 110. Holotype: ZMB unnumbered in original publication; stated to be ZMB 28016, now lost, by Inger, 1985, in Frost (ed.), Amph. Species World: 38; ZMB 4581 (a former paratype) designated neotype by Dubois and Ohler, 1999, J. South Asian Nat. Hist., 4: 156. Type locality: "Darjeeling", West Bengal, India. Neotype is from "Himalaya". Synonymy by Dubois and Ohler, 1999, J. South Asian Nat. Hist., 4: 159.

Duttaphrynus himalayanusFrost, 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.

English Names

Himalaya Toad (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 42; Fei, 1999, Atlas Amph. China: 130; Li, Zhao, and Dong, 2010, Amph. Rept. Tibet: 28).

Himalayan Toad (Das and Dutta, 1998, Hamadryad, 23: 63; Khan, 2002, Bull. Chicago Herpetol. Soc., 37: 158; Schleich, Anders, and Kästle, 2002, in Schleich and Kästle (eds.), Amph. Rept. Nepal: 78; Mathew and Sen, 2010, Pict. Guide Amph. NE India: 11).

Himalayan Broad-skulled Toad (Khan, 2001, Pakistan J. Zool., 33: 293).

Günther's High Altitude Toad (Chanda, 2002, Handb. Indian Amph.: 23).

Darjeeling Toad (Bufo abatus [no longer recognized] Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 40).

Ahl's Toad (Bufo abatus [no longer recognized]: Das and Dutta, 1998, Hamadryad, 23: 63).

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

Distribution

Extreme northwestern Yunnan (China), Azad Kashmir (Pakistan), Nepal, and India (Himanchal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, West Bengal, Assam, and Manipur); Bhutan; see comment regarding Myanmar. 

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Bhutan, China, People's Republic of, India, Nepal, Pakistan

Comment

In the Bufo melanostictus group of Inger, 1972, in Blair (ed.), Evol. Genus Bufo: 107; Dubois, 1974, Bull. Mus. Natl. Hist. Nat. Paris, Ser. 3, Zool., 213: 341–410 (who provided an account), and: 77–85, and previous authors. See Dubois and Ohler, 1999, J. South Asian Nat. Hist., 4: 149–150, for an account. Yang, 1991, Amph. Fauna of Yunnan: 100–102, Dutta, 1997, Amph. India Sri Lanka: 45–46, Fei, 1999, Atlas Amph. China: 130–131, Khan, 2001, Pakistan J. Zool., 33: 293–294, Khan, 2006, Amph. Rept. Pakistan: 42, and Chanda, 2002, Handb. Indian Amph.: 23, provided brief accounts. Ray, 1999, Mem. Zool. Surv. India, 18: 56–61, Sarkar, Biswas, and Ray, 1992, State Fauna Ser., 3: 71, and Sarkar and Ray, 2006, In Alfred (ed.), Fauna of Arunachal Pradesh, Part 1: 291, provided brief accounts for India. See also brief account by Zhao and Yang, 1997, Amph. Rept. Hengduan Mountains Region: 70–71. Anders, 2002, in Schleich and Kästle (eds.), Amph. Rept. Nepal: 146–148, provided an extensive account for Nepalese population. See brief account by Shrestha, 2001, Herpetol. Nepal: 95–96. Li, Lu, Li, Zhao, Hou, and Zhang, 2005, Sichuan J. Zool., 24: 247, provided additional localities in Xizang. Fei, Hu, Ye, and Huang, 2009, Fauna Sinica, Amph. 2: 507–511, provided an account for China and a spot map. Mehta, 2005, in Alfred (ed.), Fauna W. Himalaya, Part 2: 270, reported the species in Himanchal Pradesh, India, without noting specific localities. Mathew and Sen, 2010, Pict. Guide Amph. NE India: 9–10, provided a brief characterization and photograph and did not include Himanchal Pradesh, India, within the range. Fei, Ye, and Jiang, 2010, Colored Atlas of Chinese Amph.: 229, provided a brief account (as Bufo himalayanus) including photographs of specimens and habitat. Li, Zhao, and Dong, 2010, Amph. Rept. Tibet: 28–29, provided an account for Xizang, China, as Bufo himalayanus. See Shah and Tiwari, 2004, Herpetofauna Nepal: 32, for brief account for Nepal. Das and Dutta, 2007, Hamadryad, 31: 154–181, noted no larval larval descriptions (as Bufo abatus) and several of various levels of completeness for Bufo himalayanus). Das, Chetia, Dutta, and Sengupta, 2013, Zootaxa, 3646: 336–348, compared this species with other Duttaphrynus from northeastern India. Fei, Ye, and Jiang, 2012, Colored Atlas Chinese Amph. Distr.: 260, provided an account with photographs, and a range map for China. Subba, Aravind, and Ravikanth, 2016, Check List, 13(1: 2033): 1, provided records for Sikkim, India. Fei and Ye, 2016, Amph. China, 1: 772–774, provided an account, photograph, and dot map for the nominal species. Wangyal and Gurung, 2012, Frog Leg, 18: 35, provided a record from Gasa district, northwestern Bhutan. Tshewang and Letro, 2018, J. Threatened Taxa, 10: , reported the species from Jigme Singye Wangchuck National Park in central Bhutan. Roy, Begum, and Ahmed, 2019, J. Threatened Taxa, 10: 12943, noted an unidentified Duttaphrynus from Arunachal Pradesh that likely applies to this species (DRF). Liao, Tang, Peng, Jiang, You, and Chen, 2020, MtDNA, Part B, 5: 740–741, reported on the mtDNA genome. Gautam, Chalise, Thapa, and Bhattarai, 2020, IRCF Rept. & Amph., 27: 18–28, briefly discussed abundance and elevational range in the Ghandruk region of central Nepal. 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. Zug, 2022, Smithson. Contrib. Zool., 653: 15, briefly discussed identification, habitat, and range with respect to possible range in Myanmar, but also noted that the presence of Duttaphrynus melanostictus as far north as Putao in Myanmar also suggests that Duttaphrynus himalayanus is absent from that country. Raj, Vasudevan, Aggarwal, Dutta, Sahoo, Mahapatra, Sharma, Janani, Kar, and Dubois, 2023, Alytes, 39–40: 11–15, reported on larval morphology of genetically-confirmed specimens from Himanchal Pradesh, India.  

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