Pelophylax epeiroticus (Schneider, Sofianidou, and Kyriakopoulou-Sklavounou, 1984)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Ranidae > Genus: Pelophylax > Species: Pelophylax epeiroticus

Rana epeirotica Schneider, Sofianidou, and Kyriakopoulou-Sklavounou, 1984, Z. Zool. Syst. Evolutionsforsch., 22: 363. Holotype: ZFMK 41679, by original designation. Type locality: "the eastern shore of Lake Ioannina ca. 5 km south of Amphithea", Greece.

Rana (Pelophylax) epeirotica — Dubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 332.

Hylarana epeirotica — Chen, Murphy, Lathrop, Ngo, Orlov, Ho, and Somorjai, 2005, Herpetol. J., 15: 237, by implication.

Pelophylax epeiroticus — 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.

Common Names

Epeirus Frog (Stumpel-Rienks, 1992, Ergänzungsband Handbuch Rept. Amph. Eur., Trivialnamen der Herpetofauna Eur.: 56; Sofianidou, 1997, in Gasc et al. (eds.), Atlas Amph. Rept. Eur.: 136).

Epeiros Frog (Schneider, 1999, in Legakis (ed.), Contr. Zoogeogr. Ecol. E. Mediterr. Region, 1: 217).

Epirus Pool Frog (Arnold, 2002, Rept. Amph. Eur., Ed. 2: 95).

Epirus Water Frog (Stuart, Hoffmann, Chanson, Cox, Berridge, Ramani, and Young, 2008, Threatened Amph. World: 503).

Distribution

Western Greece (including the island of Kerkyra) north into southern Albania, 0-500 m elevation; isolated record in eastern Thessaly, eastern Greece.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Albania, Greece

Comment

Synonymized with Pelophylax ridibundus (as Rana) by Stugren and Kaplanidis, 1989, Stud. Univ. Babes-Bolyai, Biol., 34: 57–68. This synonymy implicitly not accepted by Dubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 332, or Schneider and Sinsch, 1992, Z. Zool. Syst. Evolutionsforsch., 30: 297-315. Reported in Albania by Schneider and Haxhiu, 1992, Amphibia-Reptilia, 13: 293–295. Sympatry of Pelophylax balcanicus (= Pelophylax kurtmuelleri) and Pelophylax epeiroticus reported by Sofianidou, Schneider, and Sinsch, 1994, Alytes, 12: 107. See Plötner, 1998, J. Zool. Syst. Evol. Res., 36: 191–201, and Plötner and Ohst, 2001, Mitt. Mus. Naturkd. Berlin, Zool., 77: 5–21, for discussion of relationships. Sofianidou, 1997, in Gasc et al. (eds.), Atlas Amph. Rept. Eur.: 136–137, discussed range and relevant literature. Nöllert and Nöllert, 1992, Die Amph. Eur.: 359-, provided an account and polygon map. Arnold, 2002, Rept. Amph. Eur., Ed. 2: 95, provided a brief account, figure, and map as did Günther in Engelmann, Fritzsche, Günther, and Obst, 1993, Lurche Kriechtiere Eur.: 175–176. Kyriakopoulou-Sklavounou, Xeros, Charilaou, and Tsiora, 2003, Ann. Soc. R. Zool. Belg., 133: 191-193, on the basis of allele frequencis suggested that Pelophylax epeiroticus is most closely related to Pelophylax cretensis. Casola, Marracci, Bucci, Ragghianti, Mancino, Hotz, Uzzell, and Guex, 2004, J. Zool. Syst. Evol. Res., 42: 234–244, provided a molecular tree of western Palearctic water frogs (all in Rana) in the topology Pelophylax saharicus (Pelophylax cretensis (Pelophylax perezi (Pelophylax shqipericus (Pelophylax epeiroticus ("Pelophylax lessonae" + Pelophylax ridibundus))))). See brief account for Greece by Valakos, Pafilis, Sotiropoulos, Lymberakis, Maragou, and Foufopoulos, 2008, Amph. Rept. Greece: 110–111. See photograph, map, description of geographic range and habitat, and conservation status (as Rana epeirotica) in Stuart, Hoffmann, Chanson, Cox, Berridge, Ramani, and Young, 2008, Threatened Amph. World: 503. Oruçi, 2009, Nat. Montenegrina, Podgorica, 7: 419–423, detailed the range in Albania. Speybroeck, Beukema, Bok, and Van Der Voort, 2016, Field Guide Amph. Rept. Brit. Eur.: 190–191, provided a brief account and range map. Szabolcs, Mizsei, Jablonski, Vági, Mester, Végvári, and Lengyel, 2017, Amphibia-Reptilia, 38: 435–448, provided a dot map and discussion of range in Albania. See Dufresnes, 2019, Amph. Eur., N. Afr., & Middle East: 107, for brief summary of identifying morphology and biology, a range map, as well as a photograph. Papežík, Kubala, Jablonski, Doležálková-Kaštánková, Choleva, Benovics, and Mikulíček, 2021, Salamandra, 57: 105–123, discussed the difficulty of identifying this species in the Balkans from Pelophylax kurtmuelleri, Pelophylax shqipericus, and Pelophylax ridibundus, and within a context of molecular markers provided the best characters for separating the species. Strachinis, 2021, Parnassiana Arch., 9: 111–113, provided a record and call description from eastern Thessaly, Greece.   

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