Duttaphrynus microtympanum (Boulenger, 1882)

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

Bufo microtympanum Boulenger, 1882, Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus., Ed. 2: 307, pl. 22, fig. 1. Syntypes: "several specimens" including BMNH 74.4.29.1146–1157 according to A.G.C. Grandison In Inger, 1985, in Frost (ed.), Amph. Species World: 54. BMNH 74.4.29.1146 designated lectotype by Dubois and Ohler, 1999, J. South Asian Nat. Hist., 4: 152. Type locality: "Malabar", India. Biju, 2001, Occas. Publ. Indian Soc. Conserv. Biol., 1: 8, noted the imprecision of this type locality, which could be anywhere within the entire region of the Western Ghats.

Duttaphrynus microtympanum — 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.

Common Names

Southern Hill Toad (Daniel, 1963, J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc., 60: 438; Ananjeva, Borkin, Darevsky, and Orlov, 1988, Dict. Amph. Rept. Five Languages: 40).

Small-eared Toad (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 42; Das and Dutta, 1998, Hamadryad, 23: 63; Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Gururaja, and Bhatta, 2009, Rec. Zool. Surv. India, Occas. Pap., 302: 9).

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

Distribution

Southern India (Tamil Nadu and Kerala) in the southern Western Ghats, possibly extending into adjacent southwestern Karnataka.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: India

Endemic: India

Comment

See accounts by Kirtisinghe, 1957, Amph. Ceylon: 19–20. See also Daniel, 1963, J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc., 60: 438. Reported from Nepal by Bahandur Shah and Gruber, 1994, Spixiana, München, 17: 57–61, although otherwise known only from the Western Ghats of southwestern India. See brief account by Shrestha, 2001, Herpetol. Nepal: 96, who accepted its presence in Nepal. Nepal material examined by Schleich, Anders, and Kästle, 2002, in Schleich and Kästle (eds.), Amph. Rept. Nepal: 78, and reidentified as Bufo melanostictus x Bufo stomaticus hybrids. Sri Lanka record by Dutta and Manamendra-Arachchi, 1996, Amph. Fauna Sri Lanka: 71-73, based on Duttaphrynus melanostictus according to Manamendra-Arachchi and Pethiyagoda, 1998, J. South Asian Nat. Hist., 3: 238. Dubois and Ohler, 1999, J. South Asian Nat. Hist., 4: 152, placed this species in the Bufo melanostictus group. Dutta, 1997, Amph. India Sri Lanka: 50, and Chanda, 2002, Handb. Indian Amph.: 26, provided brief accounts. Daniels, 2005, Amph. Peninsular India: 106-108, provided an account. Das and Dutta, 2007, Hamadryad, 31: 154–181, noted only three abbreviated larval descriptions in the literature. See photograph, map, description of geographic range and habitat, and conservation status (as Bufo microtympanum) in Stuart, Hoffmann, Chanson, Cox, Berridge, Ramani, and Young, 2008, Threatened Amph. World: 188. Ganesh and Asokan, 2010, Hamadryad, 35: 48, noted some misidentifications in the literature. See Shah and Tiwari, 2004, Herpetofauna Nepal: 34, for brief account for Nepal although as noted above the identification is suspect. Subramanian, Dinesh, and Radhakrishnan, 2013, Atlas of Endemic Amph. W. Ghats: 36, provided a very brief characterization, photograph, and dot map for South India. Sivaprasad, 2013, Common Amph. Kerala: 26–27, provided a brief account, photograph, and dot map for Kerala. Sreekumar and Dinesh, 2020, Rec. Zool. Surv. India, 120: 33–40, noted that the species does not extend as far north as the state of Maharashtra, India. Khatiwada, Wang, Zhao, Xie, and Jiang, 2021, Asian Herpetol. Res., 12: 1–35, did not accept this species as part of the Nepal fauna. 

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