Lithobates vaillanti (Brocchi, 1877)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Ranidae > Genus: Lithobates > Species: Lithobates vaillanti

Rana Vaillanti Brocchi, 1877, Bull. Soc. Philomath., Paris, Ser. 7, 1: 175. Holotype: MNHNP 6328 according to Guibé, 1950 "1948", Cat. Types Amph. Mus. Natl. Hist. Nat.: 39. Type locality: "Belize (Honduras)" = Belize, Belize; corrected to "sur les bords de la rivière de Mullins, près de Belize ([British] Honduras)" by Brocchi, 1881, Miss. Scient. Mex. Amer. Centr., Rech. Zool., 3(2, livr. 1): 12; given as "Mullins River, near Belize, British Honduras" by Kellogg, 1932, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 160: 1–224.

Rana bonaccana Günther, 1900, Biol. Centr. Amer., Rept. Batr., Vol. 7, Part 153: 201. Syntypes: BMNH ("several specimens") these being 1947.2.2.17–18 (formerly 1895.7.15.8–9), 1947.2.2.19–22 (formerly 1895.7.15.21–24), and 1947.2.2.23 (formerly 1901.12.19.1) by museum records. Type locality: "Mexico [actually Belize], Island of Bonacca, off the coast of Yucatan". Synonymy with Rana palmipes by Boulenger, 1901, Zool. Rec., 37: 27. Synonymy with Rana vaillanti by Hillis and de Sá, 1988, Herpetol. Monogr., 2: 13.

Rana brevipalmata rhoadsi Fowler, 1913, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 65: 166. Holotype: ANSP 18051, by original designation. The reference to UMMZ 52931 as a "cotype" by Peters, 1952, Occas. Pap. Mus. Zool. Univ. Michigan, 539: 21, likely denotes paratypic status. Type locality: "Bucay, Province of Guayas, Ecuador". Synonymy with Rana palmipes by Boulenger, 1919, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Ser. 9, 3: 415. Synonymy with Rana vaillanti by Hillis and de Sá, 1988, Herpetol. Monogr., 2: 13.

Rana palmipes hoffmanni Müller, 1924, Mitt. Zool. Mus. Berlin, 11: 80. Holotype: ZMB 4900, by original designation. Type locality: "Costarica". Synonymy by XXX.

Rana (Rana) vaillanti — Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 41, by implication.

Rana (Lithobates) vaillanti — Dubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 330; Hillis, 2007, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 42: 335–336, by implication; Yuan, Zhou, Chen, Poyarkov, Chen, Jang-Liaw, Chou, Matzke, Iizuka, Min, Kuzmin, Zhang, Cannatella, Hillis, and Che, 2016, Syst. Biol., 65: 835.

Rana (Novirana, Sierrana, Ranula, Lithobates) vaillanti — Hillis and Wilcox, 2005, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 34: 305. See Dubois, 2006, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 42: 317–330, Hillis, 2007, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 42: 331–338, and Dubois, 2007, Cladistics, 23: 390–402, for relevant discussion of nomenclature. Invalid name formulation under the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (1999) as discussed by Dubois, 2007, Cladistics, 23: 395.

Lithobates vaillanti — 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; Che, Pang, Zhao, Wu, Zhao, and Zhang, 2007, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 43: 1–13, by implication.

Lithobates (Lithobates) vaillanti — Dubois, 2006, C. R. Biol., Paris, 329: 829; Dubois, 2006, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 42: 325. 

English Names

Vaillant's Frog (Liner, 1994, Herpetol. Circ., 23: 28; Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 110; Lee, 1996, Amph. Rept. Yucatan Peninsula: 126; Campbell, 1998, Amph. Rept. N. Guatemala Yucatan Belize: 97; Lee, 2000, Field Guide Amph. Rept. Maya World: 129; Liner and Casas-Andreu, 2008, Herpetol. Circ., 38: 17).

Common Marsh-Frog (Arteaga-Navarro, Bustamante, and Guayasamin, 2013, Amph. Rept. Mindo: 117; Hedges, Powell, Henderson, Hanson, and Murphy, 2019, Caribb. Herpetol., 67: 15). 

Distribution

Low and moderate elevations from north-central Veracruz and northern Oaxaca to the central Río Magdalena region in Colombia on the Atlantic versant and on the Pacific versant in southeastern Oaxaca and northwestern Chiapas, Mexico, and from northwestern Nicaragua to southwestern Ecuador, 0–1700 m (see comment).

Comment

In the subgenus Lithobates of Dubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 329–330. In the Rana palmipes group and resurrected from the synonymy of Rana palmipes by Hillis and de Sá, 1988, Herpetol. Monogr., 2: 1–26, where it had been placed by Taylor, 1952, Univ. Kansas Sci. Bull., 35: 577–942. Lips and Savage, 1996, Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, 109: 17–26, included this species (as rana vaillanti) in a key to the tadpoles found in Costa Rica. See accounts by Lee, 1996, Amph. Rept. Yucatan Peninsula: 126–128, Campbell, 1998, Amph. Rept. N. Guatemala Yucatan Belize: 97; Lee, 2000, Field Guide Amph. Rept. Maya World: 129–131; Savage, 2002, Amph. Rept. Costa Rica: 402–403; and McCranie and Wilson, 2002, Amph. Honduras: 490–494. Acosta-Galvis, 1999, Rev. Acad. Colomb. Cienc. Exact. Fis. Nat., 23: 214–224, discussed Colombian populations. Hillis and Wilcox, 2005, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 34: 308, noted that the population in western Colombia and northwestern Ecuador is not conspecific with other, more northerly populations, easily distinguished by tadpole morphology and on the basis of molecular evidence more closely related to Lithobates palmipes than to other populations of Lithobates vaillanti. McCranie, 2007, Herpetol. Rev., 38: 38, summarized the departmental distribution in Honduras. See comments by Sunyer, Páiz, Dehling, and Köhler, 2009, Herpetol. Notes, 2: 189–202, regarding Nicaraguan populations. Arteaga-Navarro, Bustamante, and Guayasamin, 2013, Amph. Rept. Mindo: 115–119, provided an account and dot map for Ecuador. Köhler, 2011, Amph. Cent. Am.: 291–295, provided a brief summary of natural history and identification key for the species of Lithobates in Central America and provided a range map and photograph for this species. Ovalle-Pacheco, Camacho-Rozo, and Arroyo, 2019, Check List, 15: 398–399, reported the species from Boyacá, Colombia, and commented on the range in Colombia.

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