Indirana leithii (Boulenger, 1888)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Ranixalidae > Genus: Indirana > Species: Indirana leithii

Rana leithii Boulenger, 1888, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Ser. 6, 2: 506. Holotype: BMNH, by original designation; given as BMNH 1869.8.28.50, by Modak, Padhye, and Dahanukar, 2014, Zootaxa, 3796: 73. Type locality: "Matheran, Bombay [= Mumbai]", India.

Rana (Discodeles) leithii — Boulenger, 1918, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Ser. 9, 1: 238.

Indirana leithii — Laurent, 1986, in Grassé and Delsol (eds.), Traite de Zool., 14: 761.

Ranixalus leithii — Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 69.

Indirana leithii — Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 175-176, by implication.

Rana (Discodeles) leithii — Daniel and Sekar, 1989, J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc., 86: 194.

Common Names

Matheran Indian Frog (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 99; Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Gururaja, and Bhatta, 2009, Rec. Zool. Surv. India, Occas. Pap., 302: 85).

Leith's Frog (Das and Dutta, 1998, Hamadryad, 23: 64).

Boulenger's Brown Frog (Chanda, 2002, Handb. Indian Amph.: 119).

Leith's Leaping Frog (Daniels, 2005, Amph. Peninsular India: 197).

Matherana Leaping Frog (Garg and Biju, 2016, PLoS One, 11(11:e0166326): 18; Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Deepak, and Kulkarni, 2023, Fauna India Checklist, vers. 5.0 : 11).

Distribution

Endemic to the northern Western Ghats in extreme southern Gujarat and Maharashtra, north of the Goa Gap, between latitudes 16°N and 21°N in India. 

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: India

Endemic: India

Comment

See account by Boulenger, 1920, Rec. Indian Mus., 20: 116; and record by Daniel and Shull, 1964 "1963", J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc., 60: 743. Biju, 2001, Occas. Publ. Indian Soc. Conserv. Biol., 1: 15, noted that the range of the species does not include the type locality. Chanda, 2002, Handb. Indian Amph.: 119-120, provided a brief account (as Rana leithii). Dutta, 1997, Amph. India Sri Lanka: 123, provided range and a taxonomic bibliography. Daniels, 2005, Amph. Peninsular India: 197-199, provided an account. Das and Dutta, 2007, Hamadryad, 31: 154–181, noted several larval descriptions in the literature of varying completeness. See photograph, map, description of geographic range and habitat, and conservation status in Stuart, Hoffmann, Chanson, Cox, Berridge, Ramani, and Young, 2008, Threatened Amph. World: 480. A very brief characterization, photograph, and dot map for the Western Ghats provided by Subramanian, Dinesh, and Radhakrishnan, 2013, Atlas of Endemic Amph. W. Ghats: 109. Modak, Padhye, and Dahanukar, 2014, Zootaxa, 3796: 62-80, reported on the molecular phylogeography of the species and suggested that Indirana leithii is composed of at least two species, the northern one that retains the name, and a southern population that remains unnamed. These authors also corrected a substantial number of misidentifications in the literature and revised the range. See account by Dahanukar, Modak, Krutha, Nameer, Padhye, and Molur, 2016, J. Threatened Taxa, 8: 9246–9251, who placed this in their Indirana leithii group. See brief account by Garg and Biju, 2016, PLoS One, 11(11:e0166326): 18. Modak, Chunekar, and Padhye, 2018, J. Nat. Hist., London, 52: 27–28, reported on life history. Parmar, 2018, IRCF Rept. & Amph., 25:  57–59, provided a record from Dhulda Village, Dangs District, Gujarat, India. Sreekumar and Dinesh, 2020, Rec. Zool. Surv. India, 120: 33–40, discussed the range in Maharashtra, India, in terms of agro-climatic zones.  

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