Scutiger occidentalis Dubois, 1978

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Megophryidae > Subfamily: Leptobrachiinae > Genus: Scutiger > Species: Scutiger occidentalis

Scutiger occidentalis Dubois, 1978, Senckenb. Biol., 59: 164. Holotype: MNHNP 1977.1069, by original designation. Type locality: "un torrent sous le village de Shukdhari, 2920–2940 m, près de Sonamarg, Cochemire (Jammu and Kashmir, India)". 

Scutiger (Scutiger) occidentalis — Dubois, 1980, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 49: 478; Fei, Ye, and Li, 1989, Acta Zool. Sinica, 35: 387; Delorme, Dubois, Grosjean, and Ohler, 2006, Alytes, 24: 13.

English Names

Ladakh Pelobatid Toad (Das and Dutta, 1998, Hamadryad, 23: 63).

Ladakh High Altitude Toad (Anders, 2002, in Schleich and Kästle (eds.), Amph. Rept. Nepal: 178).

Asian Lazy Toad (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 87).

Western Pelobatid Toad (Das and Dutta, 1998, Hamadryad, 23: 63).

Ladakh Spade Foot Frog (Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Deepak, and Kulkarni, 2023, Fauna India Checklist, vers. 5.0 : 5).

Distribution

Gilgit Baltistan, Pakistan, and Ladakh in Kashmir and Trakar Rani Kot in Himachal Pradesh, India. 

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: India, Pakistan

Comment

Considered a synonym of Scutiger nyingchiensis by Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 19, but variably treated as distinct or as a synonym of that species without critical discussion until the publication of Hofmann, Stöck, Zheng, Ficetola, Li, Scheidt, and Schmidt, 2017, Sci. Rep. (Nature, London),  7 (3308): 1–12, which provided molecular evidence for the distinctiveness of the taxon See discussion by Fei and Ye, 2016, Amph. China, 1: 587. See Shah and Tiwari, 2004, Herpetofauna Nepal: 45, for brief account for Nepal (as Scutiger nyingchinensis). Khan, 2005, Bonnoprani-Bangladesh Wildl. Bull., 2: 3, Khan, 2006, Amph. Rept. Pakistan: 53, and Khan, 2006, Amph. Rept. Pakistan: 53, provided brief accounts (as Scutiger nyingchinensis) for Pakistan. Khan, 2005, Bull. Chicago Herpetol. Soc., 40: 70–72, provided records from Pakistan. Das and Dutta, 2007, Hamadryad, 31: 154–181, noted no larval descriptions in the literature. Ficetola, Crottini, Casiraghi, and Padoa-Schioppa, 2010, North-West. J. Zool., Romania, 6: 1–12, reported Scutiger cf. nyingchinensis in northern Pakistan and discussed the range. Chanda, 2002, Handb. Indian Amph.: 13, provided a brief account (as Scutiger nyichiensis) for the Indian population. See comment under Scutiger nyichiensis for more on range. Litvinchuk, Borkin, and Hofmann, 2019, Russ. J. Herpetol., 26: 17–22, reported the species from Himanchal Pradesh, India, and modeled the expected range. See Khatiwada, Shu, Subedi, Wang, Ohler, Cannatella, Xie, and Jiang, 2019, Asian Herpetol. Res., 10: 139–157, for comments on morphology. Treated as a synonym of Scutiger nyingchiensis by Che, Jiang, Yan, and Zhang, 2020, Amph. Rept. Tibet: 81, without reference to the publication of Hofmann, Stöck, Zheng, Ficetola, Li, Scheidt, and Schmidt, 2017, Sci. Rep. (Nature, London),  7 (3308): 1–12. Rais, Ahmed, Sajjad, Akram, Saeed, Hamid, and Abid, 2021, ZooKeys, 1062: 157–175, included this species in an identification key to the amphibian species of Pakistan as well as providing a photograph.

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