Nanorana ercepeae (Dubois, 1974)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Dicroglossidae > Subfamily: Dicroglossinae > Genus: Nanorana > Species: Nanorana ercepeae

Rana ercepeae Dubois, 1974 "1973", Bull. Soc. Zool. France, 98: 496. Holotype: MNHNP 1974.1091, by original designation. Type locality: "torrent Jiuli Gad, près du village de Takundara, Nord-Ouest de Chainpur, Ouest-Népal (29° 40′ N, 81° 06′ E; altitude 2280 m). "

Rana (Paa) ercepeae — Dubois, 1975, Bull. Mus. Natl. Hist. Nat. Paris, Ser. 3, Zool., 324: 1097; Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 43.

Paa (Paa) ercepeae — Dubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 320.

Nanorana ercepeae — Chen, Murphy, Lathrop, Ngo, Orlov, Ho, and Somorjai, 2005, Herpetol. J., 15: 239, by implication; 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: 367.

Chaparana (Paa) ercepeae — Ohler and Dubois, 2006, Zoosystema, 28: 781.

Paa ercepeae — Fei, Ye, and Jiang, 2010, Herpetol. Sinica, 12: 26.

English Names

Torrent Paa Frog (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 102).

R.C.P.'s Paa Frog (Schleich, Anders, and Kästle, 2002, in Schleich and Kästle (eds.), Amph. Rept. Nepal: 79).

Distribution

Low montane regions, around 3000 m in elevation, western to central Nepal, 2200–2600 m elevation, east to the Kangchenjunga–Singalilla complex, eastern Nepal, on the Sikkim, India, border; photograph identified as this species from Thimphu District, Bhutan; controversially into Sikkim, India (see comment). 

Geographics occurrence

Natural resident: Bhutan, Nepal

Likely/controversial occurrence in political unit: India

Comment

Closely related to Nanorana rostandi (as Rana), according to the original publication. See account by Dubois, 1976, Cah. Nepal., Doc., 6: 179–189. Anders, 2002, in Schleich and Kästle (eds.), Amph. Rept. Nepal: 268–270, provided an account for the Nepal population. See statement of geographic range, habitat, and conservation status (as Paa ercepeae) in Stuart, Hoffmann, Chanson, Cox, Berridge, Ramani, and Young, 2008, Threatened Amph. World: 630. Das and Dutta, 2007, Hamadryad, 31: 154–181, noted no larval descriptions in the literature. Not addressed, and therefore not assigned to subgenus, by Che, Zhou, Hu, Papenfuss, Wake, and Zhang, 2010, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 107: 13765–13770, and Che, Zhou, Hu, Papenfuss, Wake, and Zhang, 2010, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, Suppl. Inform., doi:10.1073/pnas.1008415107/-/DCSupplemental: 2. See Shah and Tiwari, 2004, Herpetofauna Nepal: 63, for brief account. Chettri, Bhupathy, and Acharya, 2011, Biodiversity of Sikkim: 233–254, reported the species from Sikkim, India.  Subba, Aravind, and Ravikanth, 2016, Check List, 13(1: 2033): 12, considered the presence of this species in Sikkim, India, to be doubtful, although Khambu, 2011, Amph. Kangchenjung–Singalilla Complex, Nepal: ?? [not seen by DRF], reported the species from eastern Nepal on the Sikkim, India, border. 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. Wangyal, Bower, Sherub, Tshewang, Wangdi, Rinchen, Puntsho, Tashi, Koirala, Bhandari, Phuntsho, Koirala, Ghalley, Chaida, Tenzin, Powrel, Tshewang, Raika, Jamtsho, Kinley, Gyeltshen, Tashi, Nidup, Wangdi, Phuentsho, Norbu, Wangdi, Wangchuk, Tobgay, Dorji, and Das, 2020, Herpetol. Rev., 51: 793, identified a photograph of this species from Bhutan. Khatiwada, Wang, Zhao, Xie, and Jiang, 2021, Asian Herpetol. Res., 12: 1–35, did not mention this species as being part of the Nepalese fauna. But, inasmuch as its type locality is in Nepal this exclusion is curious.  

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