Minervarya marathi (Phuge, Dinesh, Andhale, Bhakare, and Pandit, 2019)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Dicroglossidae > Subfamily: Dicroglossinae > Genus: Minervarya > Species: Minervarya marathi

Fejervarya marathi Phuge, Dinesh, Andhale, Bhakare, and Pandit, 2019, Zootaxa, 4544: 254. Holotype: ZSI/WRC/A/2121, by original designation. Type locality: "Bhamburde village (N 18.5509; E 73.3790, 670 amsl), Pune , Maharashtra", India. Zoobank publication registration:12DB889B-FA48-4523-8A6F-9E32F3538185

Minervarya marathi — Here (16 Jan. 2019). See comment. 

Common Names

Marathi Cricket Frog (Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Deepak, and Kulkarni, 2023, Fauna India Checklist, vers. 5.0 : 4). 

Distribution

Northern Western Ghats parts of Pune, Maharashtra (around Bhamburde village, Tungarli lake Lonavala and Mulashi dam at an altitude 590-700 m from the sea level, India. 

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: India

Endemic: India

Comment

The generic placement of this species poses a problem. Sanchez, Biju, Islam, Hasan, Ohler, Vences, and Kurabayashi, 2018, Salamandra, 54: 109–116, employing a Maximum-likelihood Analysis of 12.75kb of 2 mtDNA loci and 12 nuDNA loci recovered a topology of Sphaerotheca + (Minervarya + Fejervarya).  Phuge, Dinesh, Andhale, Bhakare, and Pandit, 2019, Zootaxa, 4544: 251–268, noted that this topology caused a few morphological characters to be incoherent on the Sanchez et al. tree and, in addition, provided a ML analysis of less than half as much molecular evidence (5429 bp) as previously provided by Sanchez et al. that rendered a topology of Sphaerotheca + (Minervarya + Fejervarya), where Minervarya was considered a junior synonym of Fejervarya. Unfortunately, that still leaves the preponderance of evidence supporting the Sanchez et al. topology and the new species named, Fejervarya marathi, most conservatively placed in Minervarya. Additional evidence will tell (DRF). Sreekumar and Dinesh, 2020, Rec. Zool. Surv. India, 120: 33–40, discussed the range in Maharashtra, India, in terms of agro-climatic zones. Garg and Biju, 2021, Asian Herpetol. Res., 12: 345–370, summarized the systematics (morphology and molecular markers) of this member of the Minervarya andamanensis group and mapped its distribution. 

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