Euphlyctis hexadactyla (Lesson, 1834)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Dicroglossidae > Subfamily: Dicroglossinae > Genus: Euphlyctis > Species: Euphlyctis hexadactyla

Rana hexadactyla Lesson, 1834, in Bélanger (ed.), Voy. Indes-Orientales N. Eur. Caucase Georgie Perse, Zool.: 331. Type(s): Not stated; presumably originally in MNHNP. Type locality: "Pondichéry"; Guibé, 1950 "1948", Cat. Types Amph. Mus. Natl. Hist. Nat.: 37, gives data for a paratype (MNHNP 4363) as "Bengale" although this is not mentioned in the original publication.

Dactylethra bengalensis Duméril and Bibron, 1841, Erp. Gen., 6: 339. Name attributed incorrectly to Lesson, 1834, in Bélanger (ed.), Voy. Indes-Orientales N. Eur. Caucase Georgie Perse, Zool.: 331 (who used Bufo bengalensis Daudin in a different sense). Synonymy by Boulenger, 1882, Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus., Ed. 2: 17.

Rana cutipora Duméril and Bibron, 1841, Erp. Gen., 6: 338. Substitute name for Rana hexadactyla Lesson, 1834.

Rana saparoua Duméril and Bibron, 1841, Erp. Gen., 6: 338. Substitute name for Rana hexadactyla Lesson, 1834.

Rana robusta Blyth, 1855 "1854", J. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 23: 298. Syntypes: Not stated; ZSIC 9123–24 according to Sclater, 1892, List Batr. Indian Mus.: 2. Type locality: "Ceylon". Synonymy with Rana cutipora by Blyth, 1856 "1855", J. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 24: 720. Synonymy with Rana hexadactyla by Günther, 1864, Rept. Brit. India: 405; Boulenger, 1882, Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus., Ed. 2: 17.

Phrynoderma cutiporumFitzinger, 1861 "1860", Sitzungsber. Akad. Wiss. Wien, Phys. Math. Naturwiss. Kl., 42: 414.

Rana (Rana) hexadactylaBoulenger, 1920, Rec. Indian Mus., 20: 5; Guibé, 1950 "1948", Cat. Types Amph. Mus. Natl. Hist. Nat.: 37.

Rana (Dicroglossus) hexadactylaDubois, 1974, Bull. Mus. Natl. Hist. Nat. Paris, Ser. 3, Zool., 213: 341–411.

Rana (Euphlyctis) hexadactylaDubois, 1981, Monit. Zool. Ital., N.S., Suppl., 15: 240.

Euphlyctis hexadactylaPoynton and Broadley, 1985, Ann. Natal Mus., 27: 124, by implication.

Occidozyga (Euphlyctis) hexadactylaDubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 59.

Euphlyctis hexadactylusDubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 315.

Phrynoderma hexadactylum — Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 237. 

Euphlyctis (Phrynoderma) hexactyla — Dufresnes, Mahony, Prasad, Kamei, Masroor, Khan, Al-Johany, Gautam, Gupta, Borkin, Melnikov, Rosanov, Skorinov, Borzée, Jablonski, and Litvinchuk, 2022, Syst. Biodiversity, 20 (2102686): 1.

English Names

Indian Five-fingered Frog (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 99).

Six-toed Frog (Schleich, Anders, and Kästle, 2002, in Schleich and Kästle (eds.), Amph. Rept. Nepal: 79).

Six-toe Green Frog (de Silva, 2009, Amph. Rep. Sri Lanka Photograph. Guide: 68).

Indian Pond Frog (Ananjeva, Borkin, Darevsky, and Orlov, 1988, Dict. Amph. Rept. Five Languages: 123; Daniels, 2005, Amph. Peninsular India: 182; Mathew and Sen, 2010, Pict. Guide Amph. NE India: 29).

Indian Bullfrog (CITES).

Indian Green Frog (Das and Dutta, 1998, Hamadryad, 23: 64; Daniels, 2005, Amph. Peninsular India: 182).

Green Pond Frog (Shrestha, 2001, Herpetol. Nepal: 81); Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Deepak, and Kulkarni, 2023, Fauna India Checklist, vers. 5.0 : 5).

Distribution

Coast plain of India, from Tripura through Bangladesh to Tamil Nadu, India; records from Manipur, Punjab, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are questionable and likely represent other named and unnamed taxa (see comment).

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka

Comment

See accounts by Boulenger, 1920, Rec. Indian Mus., 20: 12; Mondal, 1970, Sci. Cult., Calcutta, 36: 138–143; Kirtisinghe, 1957, Amph. Ceylon: 26–29, and Dutta and Manamendra-Arachchi, 1996, Amph. Fauna Sri Lanka: 116–119. Chanda, 2002, Handb. Indian Amph.: 114, provided a brief account (as Rana hexadactyla). Dutta and Routroy, 1990, Herpeton, Pune, 3: 5–6, provided a record from Orissa, India, and commented on ecology and range. Schleich, Anders, and Kästle, 2002, in Schleich and Kästle (eds.), Amph. Rept. Nepal: 79, rejected all records of Euphlyctis hexadactylus from Nepal as likely based on misidentified Euphlyctis cyanophlyctis. See brief accounts by Shrestha, 2001, Herpetol. Nepal: 81–83, and Sarkar, Biswas, and Ray, 1992, State Fauna Ser., 3: 84–85. Dutta, 1997, Amph. India Sri Lanka: 116–117, provided the distribution in India, a record for Pakistan (questionable, see below), a partial bibliography, and a systematic comment. Daniels, 2005, Amph. Peninsular India: 182–185, provided a brief account for peninsular India. Ningombam and Bordoloi, 2007, Zoos' Print J., 22: 2688–2690, provided a record for Manipur, northeastern India, but this identification needs confirmation. Das and Dutta, 2007, Hamadryad, 31: 154–181, noted several larval descriptions of varying levels of completeness in the literature. Nair and Kumar, 2005, Cobra, Chennai, 60: 18–25, reported on aspects of external variation in a population from Karnataka, India. Sen and Mathew, 2004, Cobra, Chennai, 55: 1–4, discussed the morphological distinctiveness of Euphlyctis hexadactylus from Euphlyctis cyanophlyctis. Alam, Igawa, Khan, Islam, Kuramoto, Matsui, Kurabayashi, and Sumida, 2008, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 48: 515–527, suggested that Sri Lankan and Bangladeshi Euphlyctis hexadactylus are not conspecific; and that several unnamed parapatric taxa exist in the Western Ghats of South India; the oldest name for the Sri Lankan population is Rana robusta Blyth (DRF). Mathew and Sen, 2010, Pict. Guide Amph. NE India: 29, provided a brief characterization and photographs. Mahony, Hasan, Kabir, Ahmed, and Hossain, 2009, Hamadryad, 34: 80–94, provided the first vouchered records for the species in Bangladesh and discussed the range. de Silva, 2009, Amph. Rep. Sri Lanka Photograph. Guide: 68, provided a brief account and color photograph for Sri Lanka. Bopage, Wewelwala, Krvavac, Jovanovic, Safarek, and Pushpamal, 2011, Salamandra, 47: 173–177, reported the species in lowland forest in the Kanneliya Forest of southwestern Sri Lanka. See Shah and Tiwari, 2004, Herpetofauna Nepal: 53, noted the dubious status of old records for Nepal. Hasan, Islam, Khan, Alam, Kurabayashi, Igawa, Kuramoto, and Sumida, 2012, Zool. Sci., Tokyo, 29: 162–172, suggested on the basis of molecular evidence that populations in Bangladesh represent a different cryptic species that the South India (including the type locality) population. Rana and Selim, 2016, Herpetol. Rev., 47: 247, provided a record from Sonankandi, Narayangani District, Dhaka Division, Bangladesh and discussed the known range in Bangladesh.  Priti, Naik, Seshadri, Singal, Vidisha, Ravikanth, and Gururaja, 2016, Asian Herpetol. Res., 7: 229–241, suggested on the basis of molecular data and morphology that nominal Euphlyctis hexadactylus represents a species complex, of which they named the distinctive population from coastal Karnataka, India, as Euphlyctis karaavali. Sreekumar and Dinesh, 2020, Rec. Zool. Surv. India, 120: 33–40, noted that records from Maharashtra, India, are in error.  Khatiwada, Wang, Zhao, Xie, and Jiang, 2021, Asian Herpetol. Res., 12: 1–35, did not accept this species as part of the Nepal fauna and implied that those records are based on misidentified Euphlyctis kalasgramensisGayen, Dey, and Roy, 2021, Zoos' Print J., 36: 33–39, reported a record from Durgapur Subdivision, West Bengal, India. In the Euphlyctis hexadactylus group of Dinesh, Channakeshavamurthy, Deepak, Ghosh, and Deuti, 2021, Zootaxa, 4990: 329–353, who mapped the species as being restricted to the Deccan Plateau and east coast of India and Bangladesh and did not address records from Punjab or Pakistan, suggesting that they were not accepted as correct by those authors. Rais, Ahmed, Sajjad, Akram, Saeed, Hamid, and Abid, 2021, ZooKeys, 1062: 163, considered the record from Punjab, Pakistan, to be questionable. Akram, Rais, López-Hervas, Tarvin, Saeed, Bolnick, and Cannatella, 2021, Ecol. Evol., 11: 14186, provided an mtDNA tree that suggests that the systematics of Euphlyctis hexadactylus and near relatives Euphlyctis karaavaii and Euphlyctis aloysii requires a detailed review. Srinivasulu and Kumar, 2022, J. Threatened Taxa, 14: 21272, noted the lack of vouchers from the state of Telangana, south-central India. Dufresnes, Mahony, Prasad, Kamei, Masroor, Khan, Al-Johany, Gautam, Gupta, Borkin, Melnikov, Rosanov, Skorinov, Borzée, Jablonski, and Litvinchuk, 2022, Syst. Biodiversity, 20 (2102686): 1–25, discussed the systematics of this species and its phylogenetic place within the genus.

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