Ombrana sikimensis (Jerdon, 1870)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Dicroglossidae > Subfamily: Dicroglossinae > Genus: Ombrana > Species: Ombrana sikimensis

Rana sikimensis Jerdon, 1870, Proc. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 1870: 83. Holotype: Not stated; ZSIC 9580 according to Sclater, 1892, List Batr. Indian Mus.: 3 (see Dubois, 1976, Cah. Nepal., Doc., 6: 190-193, for discussion of types of which Jerdon explicitly mentions that he had one specimen). Type locality: "Darjeeling", West Bengal, India.

Rana assamensis Sclater, 1892, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1892: 343. Holotype: ZSIC by original designation; ZSIC 9574 according to Sclater, 1892, List Batr. Indian Mus.: 4; considered lost by Dubois, 1974, Bull. Mus. Natl. Hist. Nat. Paris, Ser. 3, Zool., 213: 358, who suggested that ASS 005 (MNHNP) would be an appropriate neotype should that be needed. Type locality: "Khasia hill in Assam", India. Synonymy by Dubois, 1974, Bull. Mus. Natl. Hist. Nat. Paris, Ser. 3, Zool., 213: 365-368 (who considered Rana sikimensis Jerdon, 1870, to be a nomen oblitum). See comment under Rana vicina.

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

Rana sikkimensis — Boulenger, 1920, Rec. Indian Mus., 20: 78. Misspelling.

Rana (Paa) sikimensis — Dubois, 1975, Bull. Mus. Natl. Hist. Nat. Paris, Ser. 3, Zool., 324: 1098; Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 43.

Chaparana (Ombrana) sikimensis — Dubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 318.

Nanorana sikimensis — Chen, Murphy, Lathrop, Ngo, Orlov, Ho, and Somorjai, 2005, Herpetol. J., 15: 239-240.

Ombrana sikimensis — 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) sikimensis — Ohler and Dubois, 2006, Zoosystema, 28: 781.

Common Names

Sikkim Asian Frog (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 98; Schleich, Anders, and Kästle, 2002, in Schleich and Kästle (eds.), Amph. Rept. Nepal: 79).

Sikkimese Frog (Das and Dutta, 1998, Hamadryad, 23: 64; Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Gururaja, and Bhatta, 2009, Rec. Zool. Surv. India, Occas. Pap., 302: 34; Mathew and Sen, 2010, Pict. Guide Amph. NE India: 45).

Assamese Frog (Rana assamensis [no longer recognized]: Das and Dutta, 1998, Hamadryad, 23: 65).

Assam Frog (Rana assamensis [no longer recognized]: Shrestha, 2001, Herpetol. Nepal: 83).

Jerdon's Circular-flapped Frog (Chanda, 2002, Handb. Indian Amph.: 134).

Sikkimese Circular-flapped Frog (Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Deepak, and Kulkarni, 2023, Fauna India Checklist, vers. 5.0 : 5). 

Distribution

Himalayan region of West Bengal, Meghalaya, and Sikkim (India) and central and eastern Nepal; possibly into Bhutan.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: India, Nepal

Likely/Controversially Present: Bhutan

Comment

Dubois, 1974, Bull. Mus. Natl. Hist. Nat. Paris, Ser. 3, Zool., 213: 365–368, discussed the species (as Rana assamensis Sclater, 1892), and was the first to note that Rana sikimensis Jerdon, 1870, was the oldest name for this species. See Dubois, 1976, Cah. Nepal., Doc., 6: 208, for additional discussion (as Rana sikimensis). Chanda, 2002, Handb. Indian Amph.: 86 (as Rana assamensis) and page 134 (as Rana sikkimensis) provided brief accounts. Anders, 2002, in Schleich and Kästle (eds.), Amph. Rept. Nepal: 217–220, provided an account for the Nepal population. See brief account (as Rana assamensis) by Shrestha, 2001, Herpetol. Nepal: 83. Sarkar, Biswas, and Ray, 1992, State Fauna Ser., 3: 79–80, provided a brief account for West Bengal, India. Dutta, 1997, Amph. India Sri Lanka: 154–155, provided range, systematic comments, and partial taxonomic bibliography (as Rana assamensis). Das and Dutta, 2007, Hamadryad, 31: 154–181, noted two larval descriptions of varying levels of completeness in the literature.  Mathew and Sen, 2010, Pict. Guide Amph. NE India: 45, provided a brief characterization. See Shah and Tiwari, 2004, Herpetofauna Nepal: 51, for brief account (as Chaparana sikimensis) for Nepal. Shrestha and Gurung, 2019, Amph. Rept. Conserv., 13 (2: e198): 152–159, for comments on life history in Manaslu Conservation Area, 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. Khatiwada, Wang, Zhao, Xie, and Jiang, 2021, Asian Herpetol. Res., 12: 1–35, did not include this species in the Nepal fauna. 

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