Litoria rubella (Gray, 1842)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Hylidae > Subfamily: Pelodryadinae > Genus: Litoria > Species: Litoria rubella

Hyla rubella Gray, 1842, Zool. Misc., Part 2: 56. Syntypes: Not designated, but BMNH 1947.2.24.7–9 (formerly 42.2.24.19, 42.2.24.20–21, according to Condit, 1964, J. Ohio Herpetol. Soc., 4: 95); BMNH 1947.2.24.9 designated lectotype by Ingram and Corben, 1990, Mem. Queensland Mus., 28: 475. Type locality: "North coast of Australia; Port Essington", Northern Territory, Australia. Secondary homonym of Rana rubella Latreille In Sonnini de Manoncourt and Latreille, 1801 "An. X", Hist. Nat. Rept., 2: 160 (prevailing usage maintained under Art. 23.9.1 of ICZN, 1999, Internatl. Code Zool. Nomencl., Ed. 4: 28).

Hyla nigrogularis Keferstein, 1867, Nachr. Ges. Wiss. Göttingen, 18: 358. Nomen nudum. Synonymy by Cogger, Cameron, and Cogger, 1983, Zool. Cat. Aust., Amph. Rept., 1: 49.

Litoria rubella — Tyler, 1971, Univ. Kansas Publ. Mus. Nat. Hist., 19: 354.

Colleeneremia rubella — Wells and Wellington, 1985, Aust. J. Herpetol., Suppl. Ser., 1: 4.

Common Names

Red Tree Frog (Waite, 1929, Rept. Amph. S. Aust.: 263; Barker, Grigg, and Tyler, 1995, Field Guide Aust. Frogs., Ed. 2: 56; Reynolds, 2007, N. Terr. Nat., 19: 63).

Desert Tree Frog (Cogger, 1975, Rept. Amph. Australia: 105; Ananjeva, Borkin, Darevsky, and Orlov, 1988, Dict. Amph. Rept. Five Languages: 64; Tyler, Smith, and Johnstone, 1984, Frogs W. Aust.: 74; Reynolds, 2007, N. Terr. Nat., 19: 63).

Naked Treefrog (Ingram, Nattrass, and Czechura, 1993, Mem. Queensland Mus., 33: 222).

Desert Treefrog (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 60; Reynolds, 2007, N. Terr. Nat., 19: 63).

Seagull Frog (Reynolds, 2007, N. Terr. Nat., 19: 63).

Little Red Tree Frog (Reynolds, 2007, N. Terr. Nat., 19: 63; Tyler and Doughty, 2009, Field Guide Frogs W. Aust., 4th ed.: 82).

Brown Tree Frog (Reynolds, 2007, N. Terr. Nat., 19: 63).

Distribution

Kimberley region of Western Australia east and south through the Northern Territory to northern South Australia and western and central New South Wales, Australia; southern Papua New Guinea and adjacent southeastern Papua, Indonesia. 

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Australia, Indonesia, Indonesia - Papua Region, Papua New Guinea

Comment

With the naming of Litoria larisonans and Litoria pyrina on the basis of molecular markers, adult and larval morphology, and advertisement call by Purser, Doughty, Rowley, Böhme, Donnellan, Anstis, Mitchell, Shea, Amey, Mitchell, and Catullo, 2025, Zootaxa, 5594: 269–315 (who provided a range map), the concept of Litoria rubella changed substantially. As a result caution is warranted in employing any of the literature prior to 2025. 

For discussion see Copland, 1957, Proc. Linn. Soc. New South Wales, 82: 46; and Tyler, 1978, Amph. S. Aust.: 34–36. In the Litoria rubella group of Tyler and Davies, 1978, Aust. J. Zool., Suppl. Ser., 27 (63): 41. Wells and Wellington, 1985, Aust. J. Herpetol., Suppl. Ser., 1: 5, without discussion, considered this to be a complex of cryptic species. Menzies, 2006, Frogs New Guinea & Solomon Is.: 123, provided a brief account and also suggested that in Australia this name probably covers a complex of six species. See account by Tyler and Doughty, 2009, Field Guide Frogs W. Aust., 4th ed.: 82. See brief account by Tyler and Knight, 2009, Field Guide Frogs Aust.: 32–33, in which four likely distinct species in this complex are pictured. Cogger, 2018, Rept. Amph. Australia, 7th ed.: 188, provided a brief account, photograph, and polygon distribution map. Cutajar, Portway, Gillard, and Rowley, 2022, Tech. Rep. Aust. Mus. Online, 36: 31, provided a polygon distribution map. Dias, 2023, J. Morphol., 284(e21651): 1–7, described larval buccopharyngeal morphology. 

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