Nanorana liebigii (Günther, 1860)

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

Megalophrys gigas Blyth, 1855 "1854", J. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 23: 299. Holotype: Not stated, but originally in ZSIC; holotype in ZSIC according to Anderson, 1871, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1871: 149, 198; reported as lost by Theobald, 1868, J. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 37: 82, and Anderson's identification of the type doubted by Theobald, 1873, Proc. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 1873: 111, who asserted that there was a single holotype now lost; ZSIC 9577–79 reported as syntypes by Chanda, Das, and Dubois, 2001 "2000", Hamadryad, 25: 102. Type locality: "Sikim Himalaya" given as "Sikkim" by Theobald, 1873, Proc. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 1873: 111. Considered a junior synonym of Rana liebigii by Anderson, 1871, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1871: 198; Günther, 1873, Zool. Rec., 8: 86; Peters, 1881, Sitzungsber. Ges. Naturforsch. Freunde Berlin, 1881: 87; and Boulenger, 1882, Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus., Ed. 2: 22. Preoccupied by Rana gigas Walbaum, 1784 (= Bufo marinus). See discussion by Smith, Schneider, and Smith, 1977, J. Herpetol., 11: 423–425.

Rana liebigii Günther, 1860, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1860: 157. Syntypes: BMNH (1 specimen) and another, location not noted by original designation. Boulenger, 1882, Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus., Ed. 2: 23, reported two BMNH specimens (1947.2.1.88 [1845.1.12.477] and 1947.2.1.24 [formerly 1860.11.6.4] by museum records, one from "Nepal" and another from "Sikkim" as types. BMNH 1947.2.1.88 designated lectotype by Dubois, 1976, Cah. Nepal., Doc., 6: 46. Type locality: "Sikkim (3800 feet)" and "Nepal"; restricted to Nepal by lectotype designation. Synonymy with Megalophrys gigas by Boulenger, 1882, Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus., Ed. 2: 21.

Rana gigas — Peters, 1881, Sitzungsber. Ges. Naturforsch. Freunde Berlin, 1881: 87.

Rana (Rana) liebigii — Boulenger, 1920, Rec. Indian Mus., 20: 8.

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

Paa (Paa) liebigii — Fei, Ye, and Huang, 1990, Key to Chinese Amph.: 153; Dubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 320; Ye, Fei, and Hu, 1993, Rare and Economic Amph. China: 272.

Rana liebigii — Zhao and Adler, 1993, Herpetol. China: 144.

Nanorana liebigii — 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) liebigii — Ohler and Dubois, 2006, Zoosystema, 28: 781.

Nanorana (Paa) liebigii — Che, Zhou, Hu, Papenfuss, Wake, and Zhang, 2010, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, Suppl. Inform., doi:10.1073/pnas.1008415107/-/DCSupplemental: 2; Hofmann, Baniya, Litvinchuk, Miehe, Li, and Schmidt, 2019, Ecol. Evol., 9: 14506.

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

Common Names

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

Liebig's Frog (Das and Dutta, 1998, Hamadryad, 23: 65; Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Gururaja, and Bhatta, 2009, Rec. Zool. Surv. India, Occas. Pap., 302: 32; Mathew and Sen, 2010, Pict. Guide Amph. NE India: 43; Li, Zhao, and Dong, 2010, Amph. Rept. Tibet: 42).

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

Spiny-armed Frog (Fei, 1999, Atlas Amph. China: 214).

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

Distribution

Himalayan region of northern and northeastern India (Uttar Pradesh, Sikkim, West Bengal, Himanchal Pradesh, and Jammu Kashmir); Bhutan; Nepal; adjacent southern Tibet, China, and adjacent western Bhutan.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Bhutan, China, People's Republic of, India, Nepal

Comment

See Dubois, 1974, Bull. Mus. Natl. Hist. Nat. Paris, Ser. 3, Zool., 213: 362–365; Dubois, 1976, Cah. Nepal., Doc., 6: 77; and Sichuan Institute of Biology Herpetology Department, 1977, Acta Zool. Sinica, 23: 56–57. Chanda, 2002, Handb. Indian Amph.: 121–122, provided a brief account (as Rana liebigii). Anders, 2002, in Schleich and Kästle (eds.), Amph. Rept. Nepal: 271–275, provided an account for the Nepal population; Dubois, 2004, Alytes, 21: 175, noted that the skull photograph associated with this account is actually of Quasipaa spinosa (as Paa). Sarkar, Biswas, and Ray, 1992, State Fauna Ser., 3: 79, provided a brief account for West Bengal, India. Dutta, 1997, Amph. India Sri Lanka: 151, provided range, systematic comments, and partial taxonomic bibliography. Sarkar and Ray, 2006, In Alfred (ed.), Fauna of Arunachal Pradesh, Part 1: 296, provided a brief account for Arunachal Pradesh, northeastern India. Mehta, 2005, in Alfred (ed.), Fauna W. Himalaya, Part 2: 270, reported the species in Himanchal Pradesh, India, without noting specific localities. Das and Dutta, 2007, Hamadryad, 31: 154–181, noted several larval descriptions of varying levels of completeness in the literature. Mathew and Sen, 2010, Pict. Guide Amph. NE India: 43, provided a brief characterization and photograph. Fei, Hu, Ye, and Huang, 2009, Fauna Sinica, Amph. 3: 1388–1392, provided an account (as Paa liebigii) for China, figures, and map, and included this species in their Paa liebigii group. Deuti, 2010, Herpetol. Rev., 41: 104, provided a record for western Bhutan and commented on the range. Fei, Ye, and Jiang, 2010, Colored Atlas of Chinese Amph.: 368, provided a brief account (as Paa liebigii) for China including photographs. Li, Zhao, and Dong, 2010, Amph. Rept. Tibet: 42–43, provided an account (as Paa liebigii) for Xizang, China. See Shah and Tiwari, 2004, Herpetofauna Nepal: 64, for brief account (as Paa liebigii). Fei, Ye, and Jiang, 2012, Colored Atlas Chinese Amph. Distr.: 459, provided an account (as Paa liebigii), photographs, and a range map for China. See Subba, Aravind, and Ravikanth, 2016, Check List, 13(1: 2033): 6–7, for Sikkim, India, record. Tshewang and Letro, 2018, J. Threatened Taxa, 10: , reported the species from Jigme Singye Wangchuck National Park in central Bhutan. Shrestha and Gurung, 2019, Amph. Rept. Conserv., 13 (2: e198): 152–159, for comments on life history, reproduction, and larval morphology in Manaslu Conservation Area, Nepal. O'Connell, Aryal, Sherchan, Dhakal, Chaudhary, and Karmacharya, 2019, J. Nat. Hist., London, 53: 1421–1437, reported on the Kathmandu Valley population, Nepal. 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. Che, Jiang, Yan, and Zhang, 2020, Amph. Rept. Tibet: 266–272, provided a detailed account for Tibet, China. Khatiwada, Wang, Zhao, Xie, and Jiang, 2021, Asian Herpetol. Res., 12: 1–35, discussed the species in Nepal.           

External links:

Please note: these links will take you to external websites not affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History. We are not responsible for their content.