Amolops kaulbacki (Smith, 1940)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Ranidae > Genus: Amolops > Species: Amolops kaulbacki

Rana kaulbacki Smith, 1940, Rec. Indian Mus., 42: 472. Holotype: BMNH 1940.6.1.1, by original designation. Type locality: "Pangnamdim", Upper Myanmar.

Amolops kaulbackiDubois, 1974, Bull. Mus. Natl. Hist. Nat. Paris, Ser. 3, Zool., 213: 361.

Amolops (Amolops) kaulbackiDubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 321.

English Names

Burmese Sucker Frog (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 97).

Kaulback's Torrent Frog (Sailo, Lalremsanga, and Hooroo, 2007, Herpetol. Rev., 38: 96; Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Gururaja, and Bhatta, 2009, Rec. Zool. Surv. India, Occas. Pap., 302: 70).

Distribution

Northern Myanmar (Kachin) and Pianma, Yunnan, China; possibly Mizoram, India. See comment. 

Comment

Closely related to Rana formosa according to the original publication. Transferred to Amolops by Dubois, 1974, Bull. Mus. Natl. Hist. Nat. Paris, Ser. 3, Zool., 213: 361, who suggested that it is probably a subspecies of Amolops formosus and that Staurois lifanensis Liu, 1945, is a junior synonym. These positions were rejected by Yang, 1991, Fieldiana, Zool., N.S., 63: 16. See comment under Amolops lifanensis. Sailo, Lalremsanga, and Hooroo, 2007, Herpetol. Rev., 38: 96, reported the species for Mizoram, India, but later suggested (Lalronunga, Vanramliana, Lalrinchhana, Vanlalhrima, Sailo, Lalnunhlua, Sailo, Zosangliana, Lalhmangaiha, and Lalhmingliani, 2020, Sci. Vision, 20: 106–117) that this identification needed to be confirmed with genetic analysis. In the Amolops viridimaculatus group of Jiang, Ren, Lyu, Wang, Wang, Lv, Wu, and Li, 2021, Zool. Res., Kunming, 42: 574–591. Zug, 2022, Smithson. Contrib. Zool., 653: 34, briefly discussed identification, habitat, and range in Myanmar. Mahony, Nidup, Streicher, Teeling, and Kamei, 2022, Herpetol. J., 32: 146, provided genetically-confirmed records for Pianma, Yunnan, China, and placed this species in the Amolops viridimaculatus group. 

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