Xenophrys robusta (Boulenger, 1908)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Megophryidae > Subfamily: Megophryinae > Genus: Xenophrys > Species: Xenophrys robusta

Megalophrys robusta Boulenger, 1908, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1908: 418. Syntypes: ZSIC (4 specimens) and BMNH (1 specimen), by original designation; BMNH 1947.2.25.19 (formerly 1908.4.8.8) designated lectotype by Mahony, Kamei, Teeling, and Biju, 2018, Zootaxa, 4523: 30. Type locality: "Darjeeling", West Bengal, India.

Megophrys (Megophrys) robustaDubois, 1980, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 49: 472.

Panophrys robustaRao and Yang, 1997, Asiat. Herpetol. Res., 7: 98–99. Tentative combination.

Megophrys (Xenophrys) robustaDubois and Ohler, 1998, Dumerilia, 4: 14.

Xenophrys robustaOhler, 2003, Alytes, 21: 23, by implication; Delorme, Dubois, Grosjean, and Ohler, 2006, Alytes, 24: 17; Chen, Zhou, Poyarkov, Stuart, Brown, Lathrop, Wang, Yuan, Jiang, Hou, Chen, Suwannapoom, Nguyen, Duong, Papenfuss, Murphy, Zhang, and Che, 2017, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 106: 41; Lyu, Zeng, Wang, Liu, Huang, Li, and Wang, 2021, Zootaxa, 4927: 39.

Megophrys (Xenophrys) robusta — Mahony, Foley, Biju, and Teeling, 2017, Mol. Biol. Evol., 34: 756. 

English Names

Bengal Spadefoot Toad (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 86).

Robust Spadefoot Toad (Schleich, Anders, and Kästle, 2002, in Schleich and Kästle (eds.), Amph. Rept. Nepal: 78; Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Gururaja, and Bhatta, 2009, Rec. Zool. Surv. India, Occas. Pap., 302: 44).

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

White-lipped Horned Toad (Mathew and Sen, 2010, Pict. Guide Amph. NE India: 58).

Robust Horned Frog (Mahony, Kamei, Teeling, and Biju, 2018, Zootaxa, 4523: 35; Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Deepak, and Kulkarni, 2023, Fauna India Checklist, vers. 5.0 : 6).

Distribution

Darjeeling Hills of northern West Bengal and Arunachal Pradesh, east to at least the West Kameng District of western Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, as well as Ilam, Pachthar, and Taplejung Provinces of Nepal; expected in Bhutan  

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: India, Nepal

Likely/Controversially Present: Bhutan

Comment

Brief account provided by Chanda, 2002, Handb. Indian Amph.: 12. Rai and Anders, 2002, in Schleich and Kästle (eds.), Amph. Rept. Nepal: 167–171, provided an extensive account for Nepalese population. Bordoloi and Borah, 2001, Cotton College Res. J., India, 1: 191–193, provided the record for Arunachal Pradesh, India. Sarkar, Biswas, and Ray, 1992, State Fauna Ser., 3: 75, provided a brief account for West Bengal, India. Das and Dutta, 2007, Hamadryad, 31: 154–181, noted no larval descriptions in the literature. Mathew and Sen, 2010, Pict. Guide Amph. NE India: 58–59, provided a brief characterization and photographs. See Shah and Tiwari, 2004, Herpetofauna Nepal: 42, for brief account for Nepal. See account by Mahony, Kamei, Teeling, and Biju, 2018, Zootaxa, 4523: 30–37, provided a detailed account, noting that records from Meghalaya, Assam, and Nagaland (India), Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Vietnam as either needing to be corroborated or erroneous. Kharkongor, Saikia, and Deb, 2018, Rec. Zool. Surv. India, 118: 46, briefly summarized the range in India, apparently in ignorance of the paper by Mahony et al., 2018. Mahony, Kamei, Teeling, and Biju, 2020, J. Nat. Hist., London, 54: 184–185, discussed the Indian record presented by Kharkongor et al., 2018, and suggested that their record is based on Megophrys flavipunctataKhatiwada, Wang, Zhao, Xie, and Jiang, 2021, Asian Herpetol. Res., 12: 1–35, discussed the genetics of the species in Nepal. In the Xenophrys major group of Lyu, Qi, Wang, Zhang, Zhao, Zeng, Wan, Yang, Mo, and Wang, 2023, Zool. Res., Kunming, 44: 380–450.   

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.