Hoplobatrachus crassus (Jerdon, 1853)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Dicroglossidae > Subfamily: Dicroglossinae > Genus: Hoplobatrachus > Species: Hoplobatrachus crassus

Rana malabarica Kelaart, 1853, Prodr. Faunae Zeylan., 1: 191. Types: Not stated or known to exist. Type locality: "Trincomalie in paddy field and other marshy grounds", Sri Lanka. Considered a synonym of Rana tigerina (sensu lato) by Boulenger, 1890, Fauna Brit. India, Rept. Batr.: 449, and Bourret, 1942, Batr. Indochine: 240, although the type locality is extralimital to the known range. A junior primary homonym of Rana malabarica Tschudi.

Rana crassa Jerdon, 1853, J. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 22: 531. Type(s): ZSIC; reported as lost by Jerdon, 1870, Proc. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 1870: 67; lost, according to Dutta and Manamendra-Arachchi, 1996, Amph. Fauna Sri Lanka: 96. Type locality: "found in a few tanks in the Carnatic [now part Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, India]".

Hoplobatrachus ceylanicus Peters, 1863, Monatsber. Preuss. Akad. Wiss. Berlin, 1863: 445-470. Holotype: ZMB 3354 according to Bauer, 1998, Hamadryad, 23: 143. Type locality: "Trinkemalie, Ceylon" (=Trincomalee, Sri Lanka). Synonymy (with Rana tigrina) by Boulenger, 1882, Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus., Ed. 2: 26; Boettger, 1892, Ber. Offenbach. Ver. Naturkd., 1892: 94.

Rana (Hoplobatrachus) ceylanicus — Günther, 1872, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Ser. 4, 9: 85.

Rana tigrina var. ceylanica — Boettger, 1892, Ber. Offenbach. Ver. Naturkd., 1892: 94.

Rana tigrina var. crassa — Boulenger, 1918, Rec. Indian Mus., 15: 51-58.

Rana crassa — Annandale, 1918, Rec. Indian Mus., 15: 61; Bhaduri, 1944, J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc., 44: 481–483.

Rana tigrina crassa — Bourret, 1942, Batr. Indochine: 241.

Rana (Dicroglossus) crassa — Dubois, 1974, Bull. Mus. Natl. Hist. Nat. Paris, Ser. 3, Zool., 213: 378–380.

Limnonectes (Hoplobatrachus) crassus — Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 60.

Hoplobatrachus crassus — Dubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 315.

Common Names

Turkey Frog (Rana malabarica [no longer recognized]: Jerdon, 1853, J. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 22: 531).

Malabar Bull Frog (Rana malabarica: Kelaart, 1853, Prodr. Faunae Zeylan., 1: 191).

Carnatic Peters Frog (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 99).

Jerdon’s Bull Frog (Ananjeva, Borkin, Darevsky, and Orlov, 1988, Dict. Amph. Rept. Five Languages: 121; Das and Dutta, 1998, Hamadryad, 23: 64; Schleich, Anders, and Kästle, 2002, in Schleich and Kästle (eds.), Amph. Rept. Nepal: 79; Ahmed, Das, and Dutta, 2009, Amph. Rept. NE India: 37; Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Gururaja, and Bhatta, 2009, Rec. Zool. Surv. India, Occas. Pap., 302: 24; Mathew and Sen, 2010, Pict. Guide Amph. NE India: 35; de Silva, 2009, Amph. Rep. Sri Lanka Photograph. Guide: 72; Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Deepak, and Kulkarni, 2023, Fauna India Checklist, vers. 5.0 : 3).  

Jerdon’s Bullfrog (Schleich, Anders, and Kästle, 2002, in Schleich and Kästle (eds.), Amph. Rept. Nepal: 79; Daniels, 2005, Amph. Peninsular India: 185).

South Indian Bullfrog (Daniels, 2005, Amph. Peninsular India: 185).

Distribution

Sri Lanka and southern India north and east to Nepal (below 400 m elevation), Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland, and Bangladesh, and possibly into adjacent western Myanmar (Rakhine State). 

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka

Likely/Controversially Present: Myanmar

Comment

In the Hoplobatrachus tigerinus group of Dubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 315 (following Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 60). Discussed by Kirtisinghe, 1957, Amph. Ceylon: 32–35 (as Rana tigrina crassa), Dubois, 1974, Bull. Mus. Natl. Hist. Nat. Paris, Ser. 3, Zool., 213: 341–411, and Dubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 315. Removed from the synonymy of Rana tigerina by Dubois, 1974, Bull. Mus. Natl. Hist. Nat. Paris, Ser. 3, Zool., 213: 341–411. See account by Dutta and Manamendra-Arachchi, 1996, Amph. Fauna Sri Lanka: 96–99. Choudhury, Hussain, Buruah, Saikia, and Sengupta, 2002, Hamadryad, 26: 278, commented on the range in Assam, India. Chanda, 2002, Handb. Indian Amph.: 97, provided a brief account (as Rana crassa). Ray, 1999, Mem. Zool. Surv. India, 18: 29–33, also provided an account. Anders, 2002, in Schleich and Kästle (eds.), Amph. Rept. Nepal: 229–233, provided an account for the Nepal population. See brief account by Shrestha, 2001, Herpetol. Nepal: 79–81. Sarkar, Biswas, and Ray, 1992, State Fauna Ser., 3: 86–87, provided a brief account for West Bengal, India. Dutta, 1997, Amph. India Sri Lanka: 118–119, provided range in India, comments on misidentifications in the literature, and a partial bibliography. Ao, Bordoloi, and Ohler, 2003, Zoos' Print J., 18: 1117–1125, provided a specific locality for Nagaland, northeastern India. Daniels, 2005, Amph. Peninsular India: 185–187, provided an account for peninsular India. Ahmed, Das, and Dutta, 2009, Amph. Rept. NE India: 37, provided a brief account for northeastern India. Mathew and Sen, 2010, Pict. Guide Amph. NE India: 35, provided a brief characterization and photographs. 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. See Shah and Tiwari, 2004, Herpetofauna Nepal: 54, for brief account for Nepal. Sarker, Howlader, and Kabir, 2012, Herpetol. Rev., 43: 298, provided a range extension to Nilphamari District, Bangladesh, and commented on the range. Al-Razi, Baki, and Alam, 2014, Herpetol. Rev., 45: 653–654, provided a range extension to Rangpur District, Bangladesh, and documented the known collection sites in that country. Sivaprasad, 2013, Common Amph. Kerala: 52–53, provided a brief account, photograph, and dot map for Kerala. Ahmad and Alam, 2015, Herpetol. Rev., 46: 560, provided a record from Nazipur, Naogaon District, Rajshahi Division, Bangladesh. Reported from extreme southwestern Nepal in the Shuklaphanta National Park by Rawat, Bhattarai, Poudyal, and Subedi, 2020, J. Threatened Taxa, 12: 11587. Prasad, Gautam, Gupta, Murthy, Ramesh, Shinde, and Das, 2020, Zootaxa, 4851: 450–476, reported on morphology for a population in the Panna Tiger Reserve, Madhya Pradesh, central India. Khatiwada, Wang, Zhao, Xie, and Jiang, 2021, Asian Herpetol. Res., 12: 1–35, discussed the species in Nepal. Ganesh and Guptha, 2021, J. Anim. Diversity, 3(3): 29, provided records from the Eastern Ghats, Andhra Pradesh, India. Zug, 2022, Smithson. Contrib. Zool., 653: 19, briefly discussed identification, habitat, and possible range within Myanmar. Srinivasulu and Kumar, 2022, J. Threatened Taxa, 14: 21268, reported the species from the state of Telangana, south-central India. Rabbe, Jaman, Alam, Rahman, and Sarker, 2022, Amph. Rept. Conserv., 16: 226–234, provided records for northwestern Bangladesh. Reported from Papikonda National Park, in the Eastern Ghats of Andhra Pradesh, India, by Bhupathi, Mohapatra, Narayana, Kunte, Jaiswal, and Kar, 2025, Rec. Zool. Surv. India, 125: 255–276. Hakim and Ashar, 2025, Herpetol. Conserv. Biol., 20: 413–437, reported the species from Kukrail Reserve Forest, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India. Saha, Das, Patra, Mahapatra, Jena, Prakash, Mahapatra, Deuti, and Mohapatra, 2026, Check List, 22: 57–74, discussed genetically confirmed records for northeastern Jharkhand state, India. Kumar, 2026, J. Entomol. Zool. Stud., 14: 64–72, reported on habitat in the Jamshedpur region of East Singhbhum district, southeastern Jharkhand, India.   

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