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 and Dulongiang, Yunnan, China; possibly Mizoram, India. See comment. 

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: China, People's Republic of, Myanmar

Likely/Controversially Present: India

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. Hou, Yu, Liu, Liu, Wang, Li, and Orlov, 2023, Russ. J. Herpetol., 30: 144–166, provided genetically confirmed records from Pianma and Dulongjiang, Yunnan, China. 

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