Search tool	Example of search string in box	What that means to the database
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	Hyl*	Will find all uses of "Hyl . . ." anywhere in a record: e.g., Hylarana, Hyla, Hylidae, Hylinae, Hylaedactyla.
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	*Hyla	Will find all uses of ". . . hyla" anywhere in a record: e.g., Hyla, Hylidae, Plectrohyla, Ptychadena hylaea, Adenomera hylaedactyla
	Hyla	Will find all records that contain stand-alone uses of Hyla: e.g., Hyla, Hyla arenicolor
Strings of words without quotation marks	Lithobates pipiens	Interprets this as "Lithobates OR pipiens" so will find the union of all records that contain either "Lithobates" or "pipiens": e.g., Lithobates omiltemanus, Hylorana pipiens
Strings of word with quotation marks	"Lithobates pipiens"	Interprets this as "Lithobates AND pipiens" so will return all records that have the character string "Lithobates pipiens" anywhere within a record: e.g., all members of the Lithobates pipiens complex.
AND statement. Means that the results of the search must include both words held together by an AND	Lithobates AND pipiens	Same as "Lithobates pipiens"
OR statement. Means that the results of the search will all records that have either of the terms held together by an OR	Lithobates OR "Costa Rica"	Recovers all records that contain the word "Lithobates" or "Costa Rica": 402 records inasmuch as this will include all records for the entire amphibian fauna of Costa Rica
Combining Boolean operators within the Basic Search box (AND, OR, NOT, quotation marks)	Lithobates AND "Costa Rica" NOT forreri	Recovers only records that contain the word Lithobates AND "Costa Rica", but excludes any record that contains the word "forreri" in any part of the record: 9 records
Printable HELP file

Search tool	Example of search string in box	What that means to the database
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	Hyl*	Will find all uses of "Hyl . . ." anywhere in a record: e.g., Hylarana, Hyla, Hylidae, Hylinae, Hylaedactyla.
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	*Hyla	Will find all uses of ". . . hyla" anywhere in a record: e.g., Hyla, Hylidae, Plectrohyla, Ptychadena hylaea, Adenomera hylaedactyla
Single word	Hyla	Will find all records that contain stand-alone uses of Hyla: e.g., Hyla, Hyla arenicolor
Strings of words without quotation marks	Lithobates pipiens	Interprets this as "Lithobates OR pipiens" so will find the union of all records that contain either "Lithobates" or "pipiens": e.g., Lithobates omiltemanus, Hylorana pipiens
Strings of word with quotation marks	"Lithobates pipiens"	Interprets this as "Lithobates AND pipiens" so will return all records that have the character string "Lithobates pipiens" anywhere within a record: e.g., all members of the Lithobates pipiens complex.
AND statement. Means that the results of the search must include both words held together by an AND	Lithobates AND pipiens	Same as "Lithobates pipiens"
OR statement. Means that the results of the search will all records that have either of the terms held together by an OR	Lithobates OR "Costa Rica"	Recovers all records that contain the word "Lithobates" or "Costa Rica": 402 records inasmuch as this will include all records for the entire amphibian fauna of Costa Rica
Combining Boolean operators within the Basic Search box (AND, OR, NOT, quotation marks)	Lithobates AND "Costa Rica" NOT forreri	Recovers only records that contain the word Lithobates AND "Costa Rica", but excludes any record that contains the word "forreri" in any part of the record: 9 records
Printable HELP file

Minervarya rufescens (Jerdon, 1853)

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

Pyxicephalus rufescens Jerdon, 1853, J. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 22: 534. Type(s): Not stated but presumably originally in the ZSIC; reported as lost by Jerdon, 1870, Proc. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 1870: 67; apparently lost from ZSIC according to Dubois, 1984, Alytes, 3: 15, who designated MNHNP 1984.2348 neotype. Type locality: "Malabar Coast", South India; neotype is from Gundia, Kemphole Forest, west of Sakleshpur, Karnataka, India.

Rana rufescens — Boulenger, 1882, Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus., Ed. 2: 29.

Rana (Tomopterna) rufescens — Boulenger, 1920, Rec. Indian Mus., 20: 102; Dubois, 1983, Alytes, 2: 164.

Rana (Fejervarya) rufescens — Dubois, 1984, Alytes, 3: 149.

Limnonectes (Fejervarya) rufescens — Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 61.

Tomopterna rufescens — Das and Dutta, 1998, Hamadryad, 23: 66.

Fejervarya rufescens — Iskandar, 1998, Amph. Java Bali: 71, by implication; Dubois, 1999, J. South Asian Nat. Hist., 4: 6; Dubois and Ohler, 2000, Alytes, 18: 35; Fei, Ye, Jiang, and Xie, 2002, Herpetol. Sinica, 9: 92; Dinesh, Vijayakumar, Channakeshavamurthy, Torsekar, Kulkarni, and Shanker, 2015, Zootaxa, 3999: 79.

Sphaerotheca rufescens — Das and Dutta, 2007, Hamadryad, 31: 158.

Zakerana rufescens — Howlader, 2011, Bangladesh Wildl. Bull., 5: 2.

Minervarya rufescens — Sanchez, Biju, Islam, Hasan, Ohler, Vences, and Kurabayashi, 2018, Salamandra, 54: 115.

Common Names

Malabar Wart Frog (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 100).

Reddish Burrowing Frog (Das and Dutta, 1998, Hamadryad, 23: 66; Daniels, 2005, Amph. Peninsular India: 248; Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Gururaja, and Bhatta, 2009, Rec. Zool. Surv. India, Occas. Pap., 302: 22).

Rufescent Burrowing Frog (Daniels, 2005, Amph. Peninsular India: 248; Garg and Biju, 2017, Zootaxa, 4277: 467).

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

Distribution

Restricted to Karnataka and adjoining regions in Kerala, north of the Palghat gap in the Western Ghats of southern India; genetically confirmed from Manipal and Mookambika Wildlife Sanctuary (Udupi district), and Guddekere, Agumbe reserve forest (Shimoga district) in Karnataka; and Peruvannamuzhi and Pozhuthana (Wayanad district) in Kerala.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: India

Endemic: India

Comment

See account by Boulenger, 1920, Rec. Indian Mus., 20: 102. Kadadevaru, Kanamadi, and Schneider, 2000, Amphibia-Reptilia, 21: 242–246, reported on the advertisement call (as Tomopterna rufescens). Chanda, 2002, Handb. Indian Amph.: 145, 214–215, provided a brief account (as Tomopterna rufescens). Dutta, 1997, Amph. India Sri Lanka: 171–172, provided a range, systematic comments, and partial taxonomic bibliography (as Tomopterna rufescens). Kuramoto and Dubois, 2009, Curr. Herpetol., Kyoto, 28: 65–70, reported the advertisement call. Daniels, 2005, Amph. Peninsular India: 248–249, provided an account (as Tomopterna rufescens). Considered a member of Tomopterna by Matsui, Toda, and Ota, 2008 "2007", Curr. Herpetol., Kyoto, 26: 73, but without discussing evidence. Kuramoto, Joshy, Kurabayashi, and Sumida, 2008 "2007", Curr. Herpetol., Kyoto, 26: 81–105, discussed the species and considered it to be phylogenetically within Fejervarya and noted that the Karnataka and Kerala populations were significantly genetically divergent. Das and Dutta, 2007, Hamadryad, 31: 154–181, noted no larval descriptions in the literature (as Sphaerotheca rufescens). Kotaki, Kurabayashi, Matsui, Khonsue, Tjong, Tandon, and Sumida, 2008, Zool. Sci., Tokyo, 25: 381–390, considered this species to be in their Fejervarya syhadrensis group. A very brief characterization (as Fejervarya rufescens), photograph, and dot map provided by Subramanian, Dinesh, and Radhakrishnan, 2013, Atlas of Endemic Amph. W. Ghats: 53. Sivaprasad, 2013, Common Amph. Kerala: 50–51, provided a brief account, photograph, and dot map for Kerala. See account by Garg and Biju, 2017, Zootaxa, 4277: 467–472, who redelimited the species, and named other species from within this complex, the Fejervarya rufescens species complex, requiring that earlier literature be used cautiously. Sreekumar and Dinesh, 2020, Rec. Zool. Surv. India, 120: 33–40, noted that records from Maharashtra, India, are in error. Patel and Vyas, 2020, J. Anim. Diversity, 2: 12, noted that records from Gujarat, India, are based on misidentifications. Garg and Biju, 2021, Asian Herpetol. Res., 12: 345–370, summarized the systematics of this member of the Minervarya rufescens group and mapped its distribution.

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For information on distribution, habitat, and conservation see the Map of Life
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For access to available specimen data for this species, from over 350 scientific collections, go to Vertnet.