Quasipaa boulengeri (Günther, 1889)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Dicroglossidae > Subfamily: Dicroglossinae > Genus: Quasipaa > Species: Quasipaa boulengeri

Rana Boulengeri Günther, 1889, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Ser. 6, 4: 222. Syntypes: BMNH (2 specimens), these being BMNH 1947.2.3.85–86 (formerly 1889.6.25.23–24) according to museum records; BMNH 1947.2.3.86 designated lectotype by Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 44. Type locality: "Ichang" (= Yicheng), Hubei, China.

Rana tibetana Boulenger, 1917, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Ser. 8, 20: 414. Holotype: BMNH 1947.2.3.63 (formerly 1911.12.13.2) according to museum records. Type locality: "Yin tsin wau [=Yintsinwan], Wassu State [= Yin Xiu Wan], Tibet", now in part of Sichuan, China. Synonymy by Liu and Hu, 1961, Tailless Amph. China: 153, and Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 44.

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

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

Rana boulengeri — Inger, Zhao, Shaffer, and Wu, 1990, Fieldiana, Zool., N.S., 58: 9.

Paa (Paa) boulengeri — Fei, Ye, and Huang, 1990, Key to Chinese Amph.: 156; Ye, Fei, and Hu, 1993, Rare and Economic Amph. China: 273; Fei and Ye, 2001, Color Handbook Amph. Sichuan: 182.

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

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

Quasipaa boulengeri — Jiang, Dubois, Ohler, Tillier, Chen, Xie, and Stöck, 2005, Zool. Sci., Tokyo, 22: 358.

Quasipaa tibetana — Ohler and Dubois, 2006, Zoosystema, 28: 781. Undiscussed elevation.

Quasipaa (Quasipaa) boulengeri — Che, Zhou, Hu, Papenfuss, Wake, and Zhang, 2010, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, Suppl. Inform., 107(31): 2.

Paa boulenger — Yao and Gong, 2012, Amph. Rept. Gansu: 51. Incorrect subsequent spelling.

Common Names

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

Spiny-bellied Frog (Fei, 1999, Atlas Amph. China: 204).

Boulenger's Spiny Frog (Nguyen, Ho, and Nguyen, 2005, Checklist Amph. Rept. Vietnam: 24).

Distribution

Northern Vietnam from Cao Bang, Song La, Nghe An, Ha Giang, Bac Kan, and Tuyen Quang Provinces (see comment), north to southern and southwestern China, from the Vietnam border area northward to northern Sichuan, southern Shaanxi, southern Gansu, and east to western Jianxian and southern Hunan, isolated population in southern Shanxi, 300–1900 m elevation.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: China, People's Republic of, Vietnam

Comment

From 2009 to 2021, this nominal species usually included Quasipaa robertingeri as a synonym, removed from that synonymy of Quasipaa boulengeri by  Wang, Du, Wei, Wang, Li, and Lu, 2021, MtDNA, Part B, 6: 668, where it had been placed by Che, Hu, Zhou, Murphy, Papenfuss, Chen, Rao, Li, and Zhang, 2009, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 50: 71 and  Zhang, Zhang, Yu, Storey, and Zheng, 2018, BMC Evol. Biol., 18(26): 12. As a result caution should be employed using that literature. Account (including Rana spinosa) provided by Liu, 1950, Fieldiana, Zool. Mem., 2: 263–272. See Rana spinosa. See also account by Bourret, 1942, Batr. Indochine: 295–299, and (as Rana tibetana) by Boulenger, 1920, Rec. Indian Mus., 20: 70. See accounts by Yang, 1991, Amph. Fauna of Yunnan: 120–122; Ye, Fei, and Hu, 1993, Rare and Economic Amph. China: 273; Zhao and Yang, 1997, Amph. Rept. Hengduan Mountains Region: 84–85, and Fei, 1999, Atlas Amph. China: 204–206. See comments under Quasipaa verrucospinosa. Fan, Guo, and Liu, 1998, Amph. Rept. Shanxi Prov.: 71–73, provided an account (as Paa boulengeri) for Shanxi. Zhang and Wen, 2000, Amph. Guangxi: 110, provided an account (as Paa boulengeri) for Guangxi. Fei and Ye, 2001, Color Handbook Amph. Sichuan: 182–184, provided a brief account and illustration (as Paa boulengeri). Bain and Nguyen, 2004, Am. Mus. Novit., 3453: 1–42, provided a record for Ha Giang Province, Vietnam. Nguyen, Ho, and Nguyen, 2005, Checklist Amph. Rept. Vietnam: 24, provided specific localities for Vietnam. Yang, 2008, in Yang and Rao (ed.), Amph. Rept. Yunnan: 83–84, provided a brief account (as Paa boulengeri) for Yunnan, China. See photograph, map, description of geographic range and habitat, and conservation status (as Paa boulengeri) in Stuart, Hoffmann, Chanson, Cox, Berridge, Ramani, and Young, 2008, Threatened Amph. World: 489. Fei, Hu, Ye, and Huang, 2009, Fauna Sinica, Amph. 3: 1351–1361, provided an account (as Paa boulengeri) for China, figures, and map, and included this species in their Paa boulengeri group. Fei, Ye, and Jiang, 2010, Colored Atlas of Chinese Amph.: 360–361 (as Paa boulengeri), provided a brief account for China including photographs of specimens and habitat. Pyron and Wiens, 2011, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 61: 543–583, did not recover Quasipaa robertingeri adjacent to Quasipaa boulengeri. Fei, Ye, and Jiang, 2012, Colored Atlas Chinese Amph. Distr.: 460–461, provided accounts (Quasipaa boulengeri: 460–461; Quasipaa robertingeri: 466–467), photographs, and range maps for China. Yao and Gong, 2012, Amph. Rept. Gansu: 51, provided a brief account and photographs. Yan, Zhou, Zhao, Yuan, Wang, Jiang, Jin, Murphy, Che, and Zhang, 2013, Mol. Ecol., 22: 1120–113, reported on mtDNA phylogeography. Shan, Xia, Zheng, Zou, and Zeng, 2014, Mitochondrial DNA, 25: 83–84, reported the complete mtDNA genome. Zhang, 2017, Amph. Rept. Fanjing Mts.: 153–155, provided taxonomic and natural history information for the Fanjing Mountains population in northeastern Guizhou, China. Yuan, Yuan, Liu, Xia, and Zeng, 2017, Genome, 60: 707–711, reported on chromosomal rearrangement polymorphisms.  Zhang, Zhang, Yu, Storey, and Zheng, 2018, BMC Evol. Biol., 18(26): 11, discussed the status of Quasipaa robertingeri and confirmed its synonymy with Quasipaa boulengeri (but see Quasipaa robertingeri record). Shen, 2014, Fauna Hunan, Amph.: 278–283, provided an account for Hunan, China. Xia, Yuan, Luo, Yuan, and Zeng, 2020, Frontiers in Genetics, 10 (1364): 1–13, reported on evolution of chromosomal translocations. Le, Luong, Pham, Phan, Nguyen, Ziegler, and Nguyen, 2021, Bonn Zool. Bull., 70: 201–219, provided natural history notes and a record from Tuyen Quang Province, Vietnam. Poyarkov, Nguyen, Popov, Geissler, Pawangkhanant, Neang, Suwannapoom, and Orlov, 2021, Russ. J. Herpetol., 28 (3A): 26–27, implied that this nominal species is a species complex by referring to it as Quasipaa cf. boulengeri and stating that the taxonomic status of the Vietnam population requires study. Yan, Nneji, Jin, Yuan, Chen, Mi, Chen, Murphy, and Che, 2021, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 163 (107218): 1–7, reported on phylogenetics and phylogeography, and recovered populations from Tam Dao, Vinh Phu, Vietnam and Pingbian, Yunnan, China, as an unnamed species, closely related to Quasipaa boulengeri. Luong, Do, Hoang, Phan, Nguyen, and Pham, 2022, Biodiversity Data J., 10(e75595): 12–13, provided a record, photograph, and description of a specimen from Bac Kan Province, Vietnam. Li, Xiao, Zhao, Wu, Jin, Yan, and Liao, 2025, Biology, 14(614): 1–12, reported the species from, and its habitat preference in, Tangjiahe National Nature Reserve, in the Minshan Mountain range, northern Sichuan, China. 

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