Search tool	Example of search string in box	What that means to the database
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	Hyl*	Will find all uses of "Hyl . . ." anywhere in a record: e.g., Hylarana, Hyla, Hylidae, Hylinae, Hylaedactyla.
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	*Hyla	Will find all uses of ". . . hyla" anywhere in a record: e.g., Hyla, Hylidae, Plectrohyla, Ptychadena hylaea, Adenomera hylaedactyla
	Hyla	Will find all records that contain stand-alone uses of Hyla: e.g., Hyla, Hyla arenicolor
Strings of words without quotation marks	Lithobates pipiens	Interprets this as "Lithobates OR pipiens" so will find the union of all records that contain either "Lithobates" or "pipiens": e.g., Lithobates omiltemanus, Hylorana pipiens
Strings of word with quotation marks	"Lithobates pipiens"	Interprets this as "Lithobates AND pipiens" so will return all records that have the character string "Lithobates pipiens" anywhere within a record: e.g., all members of the Lithobates pipiens complex.
AND statement. Means that the results of the search must include both words held together by an AND	Lithobates AND pipiens	Same as "Lithobates pipiens"
OR statement. Means that the results of the search will all records that have either of the terms held together by an OR	Lithobates OR "Costa Rica"	Recovers all records that contain the word "Lithobates" or "Costa Rica": 402 records inasmuch as this will include all records for the entire amphibian fauna of Costa Rica
Combining Boolean operators within the Basic Search box (AND, OR, NOT, quotation marks)	Lithobates AND "Costa Rica" NOT forreri	Recovers only records that contain the word Lithobates AND "Costa Rica", but excludes any record that contains the word "forreri" in any part of the record: 9 records
Printable HELP file

Search tool	Example of search string in box	What that means to the database
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	Hyl*	Will find all uses of "Hyl . . ." anywhere in a record: e.g., Hylarana, Hyla, Hylidae, Hylinae, Hylaedactyla.
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	*Hyla	Will find all uses of ". . . hyla" anywhere in a record: e.g., Hyla, Hylidae, Plectrohyla, Ptychadena hylaea, Adenomera hylaedactyla
Single word	Hyla	Will find all records that contain stand-alone uses of Hyla: e.g., Hyla, Hyla arenicolor
Strings of words without quotation marks	Lithobates pipiens	Interprets this as "Lithobates OR pipiens" so will find the union of all records that contain either "Lithobates" or "pipiens": e.g., Lithobates omiltemanus, Hylorana pipiens
Strings of word with quotation marks	"Lithobates pipiens"	Interprets this as "Lithobates AND pipiens" so will return all records that have the character string "Lithobates pipiens" anywhere within a record: e.g., all members of the Lithobates pipiens complex.
AND statement. Means that the results of the search must include both words held together by an AND	Lithobates AND pipiens	Same as "Lithobates pipiens"
OR statement. Means that the results of the search will all records that have either of the terms held together by an OR	Lithobates OR "Costa Rica"	Recovers all records that contain the word "Lithobates" or "Costa Rica": 402 records inasmuch as this will include all records for the entire amphibian fauna of Costa Rica
Combining Boolean operators within the Basic Search box (AND, OR, NOT, quotation marks)	Lithobates AND "Costa Rica" NOT forreri	Recovers only records that contain the word Lithobates AND "Costa Rica", but excludes any record that contains the word "forreri" in any part of the record: 9 records
Printable HELP file

Sphaerotheca rolandae (Dubois, 1983)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Dicroglossidae > Subfamily: Dicroglossinae > Genus: Sphaerotheca > Species: Sphaerotheca rolandae

Rana variegata Gravenhorst, 1829, Delic. Mus. Zool. Vratislav., 1: 33. Types: Stated to be in the "museo Lampeano", animal figured on pl. 8, fig. 1; current status not known. BMNH 1973.3024 (holotype of Sphaerotheca rolandae) designated neotype by Deepak, Dinesh, Ohler, Shanker, Channakeshavamurthy, and Ashadevi, 2020, Zootaxa, 4885: 432. Type locality: not stated. Neotype from "Kurunegala, Sri Lanka, altitude 60 m, latitude 7° 29′ N, longitude 80° 22′ E". Preoccupied by Rana variegata Linnaeus, 1758 (= Bombina variegata). See also comments by Dahanukar, Sulakhe, and Padhye, 2017, J. Threatened Taxa, 9: 10280–10281.

Rana (Tomopterna) breviceps rolandae Dubois, 1983, Alytes, 2: 166. Holotype: BMNH 1973.3024, by original designation. Type locality: "Kurunegala, Sri Lanka, altitude 60 m, latitude 7° 29′ N, longitude 80° 22′ E".

Tomopterna (Sphaerotheca) rolandae — Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 57.

Sphaerotheca rolandae — Dubois, 1999, J. South Asian Nat. Hist., 4: 8; Vences, Glaw, Kosuch, Das, and Veith, 2000, Lourenço and Goodman (eds.), Diversité et Endéémisme à Madagascar: 232.

English Names

Sri Lanka Bullfrog (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 110).

Roland's Burrowing Frog (Das and Dutta, 1998, Hamadryad, 23: 66; Daniels, 2005, Amph. Peninsular India: 246).

Rolanda's Burrowing Frog (Schleich, Anders, and Kästle, 2002, in Schleich and Kästle (eds.), Amph. Rept. Nepal: 80).

Southern Burrowing Frog (Daniels, 2005, Amph. Peninsular India: 246).

Marble Sand Frog (de Silva, 2009, Amph. Rep. Sri Lanka Photograph. Guide: 76).

Distribution

Sri Lanka. See comment.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Sri Lanka

Endemic: Sri Lanka

Comment

The identity of Sphaerotheca rolandae is something of a conundrum and although several publications have addressed populations so identified from India, there have yet to be any genetically confirmed localities from there or even from Sri Lanka, where the name is currently restricted. Use of the literature that follows requires caution due to this ongoing confusion of the status of this taxon. Elevated from a subspecies of Tomopterna breviceps by Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 57. See account by Dutta and Manamendra-Arachchi, 1996, Amph. Fauna Sri Lanka: 133-139, who noted that the original description was based on a mixed sample of Tomopterna breviceps and Tomopterna rolandae. Chanda, 2002, Handb. Indian Amph.: 200, provided a brief account (as Tomopterna rolandae) for animals referred to this taxon from southern and eastern India as well as Sri Lanka. Anders, 2002, in Schleich and Kästle (eds.), Amph. Rept. Nepal: 310–313, provided an account, figure, and map for the population in Nepal they regarded as of this taxon. Dubois, 2004, Alytes, 21: 176, questioned that status of this species in Nepal. Dutta, 1997, Amph. India Sri Lanka: 170-171, provided a range, systematic comments, and partial taxonomic bibliography. Daniels, 2005, Amph. Peninsular India: 246–248, provided an account. Srinivasulu and Das, 2008, Asiat. Herpetol. Res., 11: 110–131, reported the species in the Eastern Ghats of Andhra Pradesh. Das and Dutta, 2007, Hamadryad, 31: 154–181, noted a few larval descriptions, of varying completeness, in the literature. Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Gururaja, and Bhatta, 2009, Rec. Zool. Surv. India, Occas. Pap., 302: 36, accepted the Indian records. de Silva, 2009, Amph. Rep. Sri Lanka Photograph. Guide: 76, provided a brief account and color photograph for Sri Lanka. See Shah and Tiwari, 2004, Herpetofauna Nepal: 75, for brief account. Hegde and Roy, 2011, Frog Leg, 17: 20–21, provided a record from Uttar Pradesh, India. Prasad, Dinesh, Das, Swamy, Shinde, and Vishnu, 2019, Rec. Zool. Surv. India, 119: 207, commented on taxonomic status of Indian populations, implying that the distinctiveness of Sphaerotheca pluvialis and Sphaerotheca rolandae, remains arguable. Deuti, Sethy, and Ray, 2014, Rec. Zool. Surv. India, 114: 132–133, provided a brief account for the Orissa and Andhra Pradesh populations India. Sreekumar and Dinesh, 2020, Rec. Zool. Surv. India, 120: 33–40, noted that records from Maharashtra, India, are in error. See discussion of Rana variegata Gravenhorst, 1829, by Deepak, Dinesh, Ohler, Shanker, Channakeshavamurthy, and Ashadevi, 2020, Zootaxa, 4885: 432, restricted the identified populations to Sri Lanka, so literature regarding "Sphaerotheca rolandae" from elsewhere should be employed with caution. Jablonski, Masroor, and Hofmann, 2021, Diversity, 13 (216): 5, noted a genbank record (GU191122), identified as Sphaerotheca rolandae (without locality information) that nests within their Sphaerotheca maskeyi.

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.

For access to general information see Wikipedia
For additional sources of general information from other websites search Google
For access to relevant technical literature search Google Scholar
For images search CalPhoto Images and Google Images
To search the NIH genetic sequence database, see GenBank
For additional information see AmphibiaWeb report
For information on conservation status and distribution see the IUCN Redlist
For information on distribution, habitat, and conservation see the Map of Life
For related information on conservation and images as well as observations see iNaturalist
For access to available specimen data for this species, from over 350 scientific collections, go to Vertnet.