Ranoidea caerulea (White, 1790)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Hylidae > Subfamily: Pelodryadinae > Genus: Ranoidea > Species: Ranoidea caerulea

Rana Caerulea White, 1790, J. Voy. New South Wales: 248. Type(s): Formerly in Leverian Museum (now widely dispersed and the types are presumed lost); see Tyler and Dobson, 1973, Herpetologica, 29: 373–375. Type locality: "New South Wales", Australia. See comment by Fouquette and Dubois, 2014, Checklist N.A. Amph. Rept.: 373, regarding authorship. 

Rana austrasiae Schneider, 1799, Hist. Amph. Nat.: 150. Substitute name for Rana caerulea White, 1790. Synonymy (with Rana caerulea) by Daudin, 1802 "An. XI", Hist. Nat. Rain. Gren. Crap., Quarto: 70; (with Hyla cyanea) by Daudin, 1803 "An. XI", Hist. Nat. Gen. Part. Rept., 8: 43; Duméril and Bibron, 1841, Erp. Gen., 6: 577.

Rana coerulea — Daudin, 1802 "An. XI", Hist. Nat. Rain. Gren. Crap., Quarto: 70. Incorrect subsequent spelling of Rana caerulea White, 1790.

Hyla cyanea Daudin, 1803 "An. XI", Hist. Nat. Gen. Part. Rept., 8: 43. Types: Not formally designated, but including specimens noted by Schneider, 1799, under Rana austrasiae, and under "The blue frog" of White, 1790, J. Voy. New South Wales: 248, pl. iv. Type locality: "Nouvelle Hollande". Synonymy by Daudin, 1803 "An. XI", Hist. Nat. Gen. Part. Rept., 8: 43; Merrem, 1820, Tent. Syst. Amph.: 174; Tschudi, 1838, Classif. Batr.: 30–31, 75; Duméril and Bibron, 1841, Erp. Gen., 6: 577; Günther, 1859 "1858", Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus.: 119; Boulenger, 1882, Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus., Ed. 2: 383.

Hyla cyanea Péron, 1807, Voy. Decouvertes aux Terres Aust., 1: 406. Holotype: Not stated or known to exist. Type locality: "Paramatta . . . Nouvelle-Hollande . . . . Sur le bord des ruisseaux, dans les fontaines et le creux des rochers les plus frais, sous le feuillage. . . ".

Hyla coerulea — Oken, 1816, Lehrb. Naturgesch., 3(2): 223. Incorrect subsequent spelling. 

Calamita cyanea — Fitzinger, 1826, Neue Class. Rept.: 64.

Calamites coerulea — Wagler, 1830, Nat. Syst. Amph.: 200; Leunis, 1844, Synops. Drei Naturr., Zool., Ed. 1: 145. Incorrect subsequent spelling of the generic name.

Calamites cyaneus — Wagler, 1830, Nat. Syst. Amph.: 200.

Hyla (Calamites) cyaneus — Fitzinger, 1843, Syst. Rept.: 30.

Pelodryas caeruleus — Günther, 1859 "1858", Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus.: 119.

Calamita cyanea — Fitzinger, 1861 "1860", Sitzungsber. Akad. Wiss. Wien, Phys. Math. Naturwiss. Kl., 42: 413; Cope, 1867, J. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, Ser. 2, 6: 201.

Pelodryas coeruleus — Günther, 1863, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1863: 249. Incorrect subsequent spelling of Pelodryas caeruleus.

Pelodryas caerulea — Peters and Doria, 1878, Ann. Mus. Civ. Stor. Nat. Genova, 13: 428.

Hyla caerulea — Boulenger, 1882, Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus., Ed. 2: 383.

Hyla irrorata De Vis, 1884, Proc. R. Soc. Queensland, 1: 128. Syntypes: QM J12870—80. Neotype designated in error as AMS J9255 by Copland, 1961, Proc. Linn. Soc. New South Wales, 86: 261. Type locality: "Gympie", Queensland, Australia. Synonymy by Covacevich, 1974, Mem. Queensland Mus., 17: 53. Resurrected; without discussion, by Wells and Wellington, 1985, Aust. J. Herpetol., Suppl. Ser., 1: 6.

Pelodryas caerulea — Boettger, 1900, Abh. Senckenb. Naturforsch. Ges., 25: 327; Wells and Wellington, 1985, Aust. J. Herpetol., Suppl. Ser., 1: 6.

Hyla coerulea — Gadow, 1901, Amphibia and Reptiles: 198. Incorrect subsequent spelling. 

Hyla caerulea caerulea — Copland, 1957, Proc. Linn. Soc. New South Wales, 82: 30.

Litoria caerulea — Tyler, 1971, Univ. Kansas Publ. Mus. Nat. Hist., 19: 352.

Litoria irrorata — Tyler, 1971, Univ. Kansas Publ. Mus. Nat. Hist., 19: 353.

Pelodryas irrorata — Wells and Wellington, 1985, Aust. J. Herpetol., Suppl. Ser., 1: 6.

Pelodryas caerulea — Savage, 1986, Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, 99: 42–45.

Dryopsophus caeruleus — Duellman, Marion, and Hedges, 2016, Zootaxa, 4104: 40.

Ranoidea caerulea — Dubois and Frétey, 2016, Dumerilia, 6: 21. 

Common Names

Blue Frog (Rana caerulea: Shaw, 1802, Gen. Zool., 3(1): 113).

Blue Frog (Pelodryas caerulea: Wood, 1863, Illust. Nat. Hist., 3: 173).

Australian Tree-frog (Hyla coerulea: Gadow, 1901, Amphibia and Reptiles: 184).

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

Green Tree Frog (Moore, 1961, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 121: 258; Cogger, 1975, Rept. Amph. Australia: 91; Tyler, Smith, and Johnstone, 1984, Frogs W. Aust.: 64; Barker, Grigg, and Tyler, 1995, Field Guide Aust. Frogs., Ed. 2: 110; Reynolds, 2007, N. Terr. Nat., 19: 62; Tyler and Doughty, 2009, Field Guide Frogs W. Aust., 4th ed.: 70; Tyler and Knight, 2009, Field Guide Frogs Aust.: 44).

Smiling Frog (Reynolds, 2007, N. Terr. Nat., 19: 62).

White's Treefrog (Litoria caerulea: Cochran, 1961, Living Amph. World: 127; Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 59).

Distribution

Northern and eastern Australia (except for Victoria and Tasmania); islands in the Torres Straits; New Guinea (Trans-Fly and Central Province, Papua New Guinea and extreme southeastern Papua, Indonesia); introduced into New Zealand and South Florida, USA.

Geographic Occurrence

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

Introduced: New Zealand, United States of America, United States of America - Florida

Comment

See Tyler, 1968, Zool. Verh., Leiden, 96: 60, Tyler, 1978, Amph. S. Aust.: 32; and Tyler, Crook, and Davies, 1983, Rec. S. Aust. Mus., 18: 424. In the Litoria caerulea group of Tyler and Davies, 1978, Aust. J. Zool., Suppl. Ser., 27 (63): 19. Lever, 2003, Naturalized Rept. Amph. World: 187, reported on an introduced population in South Florida, USA. Menzies, 2006, Frogs New Guinea & Solomon Is.: 126, provided a brief account for New Guinea. See account by Tyler and Doughty, 2009, Field Guide Frogs W. Aust., 4th ed.: 70. See brief account by Tyler and Knight, 2009, Field Guide Frogs Aust.: 44–45. Florida population discussed by Butterfield, Meshaka, and Guyer, 1997, in Simberloff et al. (eds.), Strangers in Paradise: 123–138. Cogger, 2018, Rept. Amph. Australia, 7th ed.: 154, provided a brief account (as Litoria caerulea), photograph, and polygon distribution map in the older, more inclusive sense. Oliver, Rittmeyer, Torkkola, Donnellan, Dahl, and Richards, 2021 "2020", Aust. J. Zool., 68: 25–39, partitioned Ranoidea caerulea into Ranoidea caerulea and Ranoidea mira. Cutajar, Portway, Gillard, and Rowley, 2022, Tech. Rep. Aust. Mus. Online, 36: 23, provided a polygon distribution map. Figueroa, Low, and Lim, 2023, Zootaxa, 5287: 242, noted that his species has no established populations in Singapore. Esterina, 2023, Formosa J. Appl. Sci., 2: 2369–2382, reported on the karyotype (as Litoria caerulea). Dias, 2023, J. Morphol., 284(e21651): 1–7, described larval buccopharyngeal morphology. 

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