Clinotarsus alticola (Boulenger, 1882)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Ranidae > Genus: Clinotarsus > Species: Clinotarsus alticola

Hylorana pipiens Jerdon, 1870, Proc. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 1870: 83. Types: Not designated, but including ZSIC 10039 and 10041–45, according to Annandale, 1917, Mem. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 6: 144. Chanda, Das, and Dubois, 2001 "2000", Hamadryad, 25: 105–106, considered only ZSIC 10039, 10043–45 as syntypes. Specimens cited by Boulenger, 1882, Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus., Ed. 2: 62, as collected by Jerdon might be BMNH types. ZSI 10039 designated lectotype and redescribed by Grosjean, Bordoloi, Chuaynkern, Chakravarty, and Ohler, 2015, Zootaxa, 4058: 497–498. Type locality: "Shillong", Khasi Hills, Meghalaya, northeastern India. Stated to be "Shillong on the Khasi hills" by Stoliczka, 1872, Proc. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 1872: 106. Considered a synonym of Rana nigrovittata by Sclater, 1892, List Batr. Indian Mus.: 9. Secondary homonym of Rana pipiens Schreber, 1782.

Hylarana pipiens — Stoliczka, 1872, Proc. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 1872: 106.

Rana alticola Boulenger, 1882, Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus., Ed. 2: 62. Replacement name for Hylorana pipiens Jerdon, 1870, a secondary homonym of Rana pipiens Schreber when in Rana.

Rana (Hylorana) alticola — Boulenger, 1920, Rec. Indian Mus., 20: 125.

Hylorana alticola — Deckert, 1938, Sitzungsber. Ges. Naturforsch. Freunde Berlin, 1938: 145.

Hylarana alticola — Bourret, 1939, Annexe Bull. Gen. Instr. Publique, Hanoi, 1939: 59.

Rana (Hylarana) alticola — Bourret, 1942, Batr. Indochine: 348; Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 42, by implication.

Rana (Nasirana) alticola — Dubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 329.

Nasirana alticola — Frost, Grant, Faivovich, Bain, Haas, Haddad, de Sá, Channing, Wilkinson, Donnellan, Raxworthy, Campbell, Blotto, Moler, Drewes, Nussbaum, Lynch, Green, and Wheeler, 2006, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 297: 369.

Clinotarsus alticola — Stuart, 2008, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 46: 58, by implication.

Common Names

Assam Hills Frog (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 106).

Annandale's Frog (Das and Dutta, 1998, Hamadryad, 23: 65).

Pointed-headed Frog (Chanda, 2002, Handb. Indian Amph.: 85).

Hill Frog  (Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Gururaja, and Bhatta, 2009, Rec. Zool. Surv. India, Occas. Pap., 302: 72).

Point-nosed Frog (Ahmed, Das, and Dutta, 2009, Amph. Rept. NE India: 41).

High-altitude Frog (Mathew and Sen, 2010, Pict. Guide Amph. NE India: 76).

Northern Pointed-snout Frog (Zug, 2022, Smithson. Contrib. Zool., 653: 35).

Distribution

Hills of Meghalaya and northeastern India (Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, and West Bengal) to northern and southeastern Bangladesh, possibly into Bhutan and Nepal; western mainland Myanmar (Chin, Kachin, Rakhine, Sagaing) (see comment). 

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Bangladesh, India, Myanmar

Comment

Section Hylarana, subsection Hylarana, sole member of the subgenus Nasirana of Dubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 328, although this taxaomy is now superseded. With the naming of Clinotarsus penelope, the literature of Myanmar and Thailand must be suspected to refer to that species. See accounts by Boulenger, 1920, Rec. Indian Mus., 20: 166; Bourret, 1942, Batr. Indochine: 348–350;. Bourret, 1939, Annexe Bull. Gen. Instr. Publique, Hanoi, 1939: 59, mentions Hylorana alticola in the list of amphibians of Vietnam from Mao Son, Tonkin. However, in Bourret, 1942, Batr. Indochine: 350, he states that the specimens cited as Hylorana alticola, collected by Fruehstorfer, are in fact specimens of Rana nasica (= Amolops nasicus). Thus there is no evidence for Rana alticola to occur in Vietnam and this country should be removed from the distribution of this species according to Orlov, Murphy, Ananjeva, Ryabov, and Ho, 2002, Russ. J. Herpetol., 9: 90. Choudhury, Hussain, Buruah, Saikia, and Sengupta, 2002, Hamadryad, 26: 278–279, commented on the range in Assam, India. Chanda, 2002, Handb. Indian Amph.: 85–86, provided a brief account (as Rana alticola). Chakravorty, Borah, and Bordoloi, 2002, Bull. Life Sci., India, 10: 47–54, described larval morphology at Gosner stage 38 from a population in Assam, India. Dutta, 1997, Amph. India Sri Lanka: 154, provided range, systematic comments, and partial taxonomic bibliography. Reza, 2008, Herpetol. Rev., 39: 234, provided the first vouchered record from Bangladesh. Sen and Mathew, 2009, Rec. Zool. Surv. India, Occas. Pap., 285: 124, provided a specific record for Nagaland, northeastern India. Mathew and Sen, 2010, Pict. Guide Amph. NE India: 76, provided a brief characterization and photograph as well as suggesting that the species occurs in Sri Lanka and South India, presumably based on considering Clinotarsus curtipes (not mentioned by them) and Clinotarsus alticola to be conspecific. Das and Dutta, 2007, Hamadryad, 31: 154–181, noted several larval descriptions in the literature. Mahony, Hasan, Kabir, Ahmed, and Hossain, 2009, Hamadryad, 34: 80–94, provided records for northern Bangladesh. Subba, Aravind, and Ravikanth, 2016, Check List, 13(1: 2033): 12, considered the presence of this species in Sikkim, India, to be doubtful.Deuti, Ray, Bag, and Dey, 2017, Rec. Zool. Surv. India, 117: 221–241, provided records from the "duars region", West Bengal adjacent to Bhutan. Ahmad and Mim, 2020, IRCF Rept. & Amph., 27: 36–41, reported localities from the Bandarban District, southeastern Bangladesh. See comments by Hakim, Trageser, Ghose, Das, Rashid, and Rahman, 2020, Check List, 16: 1239–1268, who reported the species from Lawachara National Park, Sylhet Division, northeastern Bangladesh. Zug, 2022, Smithson. Contrib. Zool., 653: 35–36, briefly discussed identification, habitat, and range in Myanmar, and suggested that Clinotarsus penelope is restricted to the peninsular part of Myanmar while the western mainland populations are referrable to Clinotarsus alticola. Raj, Vasudevan, Aggarwal, Dutta, Sahoo, Mahapatra, Sharma, Janani, Kar, and Dubois, 2023, Alytes, 39–40: 78–82, reported on larval morphology of specimens from Meghalaya, India. 

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