Kurixalus Ye, Fei, and Dubois, 1999

Common Names

Frilled Swamp Treefrogs (Lv, He, Klaus, Brown, and Li, 2018, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 121: 224). 

Frill-limbed Tree Frogs (Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Deepak, and Kulkarni, 2023, Fauna India Checklist, vers. 5.0 : 12).

Distribution

Himalayan front ranges from eastern India through Myanmar and mountainous southern China and south to southern Cambodia and central Vietnam, through western and northern peninsular Thailand to Malaya to Sumatra, Borneo, and the Philippines.

Comment

See paper by Wilkinson, Drewes, and Tatum, 2002, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 24: 265–273. Matsui and Orlov, 2004, Zool. Sci., Tokyo, 21: 874, discussed the recognition of Kurixalus and considered it premature to recognize the genus pending a synapomorphy for the genus. However, 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: 245, did present molecular evidence in support of this taxon, its placement distant from other "Chirixalus", and for the genus to include additional species. Li, Che, Bain, Zhao, and Zhang, 2008, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 48: 302–312, redelimited the genus. See comment under Gracixalus. See comment under Chiromantis samkosensis. Yu, Rao, Zhang, and Yang, 2009, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 50: 571–579, considered Kurixalus to form the sister taxon of Philautus. The publication by Fei, Hu, Ye, and Huang, 2009, Fauna Sinica, Amph. 2, has provided some challenges. The taxonomy of small rhacophids continues to be difficult, with species formerly to be considered members of Chirixalus (with larvae) and Philautus (with direct development) being at the center of the conversation, affecting several other groups, especially Theloderma, Kurixalus, and nominal Aquixalus. Fei, Hu, Ye, and Huang, 2009, Fauna Sinica, Amph. 2, took the unusual step of applying the name Aquixalus to all Chinese species of nominal Philautus for which no evidence of direct development had been presented. This apparently was done in the manuscript prior to the elucidation of this group by others, and as a result they transferred anything in China that had ever been considered a Philautus to Aquixalus, even if current evidence placed these species in Theloderma or Kurixalus. Moreover, discussion to support this arrangement, which is not corroborated by published lines of evidence was not provided. For this reason, I have attempted to sort out where the various species go in the currently recognized framework of genera (DRF). Pyron and Wiens, 2011, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 61: 543–583, confirmed the monophyly of Kurixalus but employed an antiquated taxonomy that obscured this result. Li, Li, Klaus, Rao, Hillis, and Zhang, 2013, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 110: 3441–3446, considered Kurixalus to be monophyletic and the sister taxon of Raorchestes (see comment under Pseudophilautus).  Wu, Huang, Tsai, Li, Jhang, and Wu, 2016, ZooKeys, 557: 121–153, provided a range map and key to adults and larvae for the species in Taiwan. Lv, He, Klaus, Brown, and Li, 2018, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 121: 224–232, reported on molecular phylogenetics and biogeography of the species; see Ali, 2020, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 145 (106053): 1–3, for comments on the age-calibration in this paper. Yu, Rao, Matsui, and Yang, 2017, Sci. Rep. (Nature, London), 7 (16124): 1–13, discussed coalescent-based species delimitation, as well as comparative morphology, of the Kurixalus odontotarsus complex (Kurixalus baliogaster, Kurixalus hainanus, Kurixalus naso, Kurixalus odontotarsus, Kurixalus verrucosus, and 6 unnamed species. Nguyen, Duong, Luu, and Poyarkov, 2020, J. Nat. Hist., London, 54: 195–223, discussed the phylogenetics and biogeography of the genus, noting that the genus is the sister of Gracixalus and the species fall into three well-delimited clades: (1) Kurixalus chaseni + Kurixalus appendiculatus (forming the sister taxon of #2 + #3); (2) Kurixalus, sensu stricto, composed of Kurixalus beryllinirus, Kurixalus eiffingeri, Kurixalus wangi, Kurixalus gracilloides, Kurixalus idiootocus, and Kurixalus lenguanensis); and (3) the remaining species for which the name Aquixalus is available. Yu, Du, Wang, Rao, Wu, and Yang, 2020, Curr. Zool., Chengdu, 66: 667–675, reported on the phylogenetics and biogeography of the species. Mo, Sun, Chen, Yu, and Du, 2023, Animals, 13 (2754): 1–13, also reported on molecular phylogenetics and biogeography with special reference to the effect of alternative evolutionary models on results. Du, Xu, Liu, and Yu, 2024, ZooKeys, 1192: 229, provided an identification key to the species of China. 

Contained taxa (23 sp.):

External links:

Please note: these links will take you to external websites not affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History. We are not responsible for their content.

• For access to general information see Wikipedia
• For additional sources of general information from other websites search Google
• For access to relevant technical literature search Google Scholar
• For images search CalPhoto Images and Google Images
• To search the NIH genetic sequence database, see GenBank
• For related information on conservation and images as well as observations see iNaturalist