Kurixalus appendiculatus (Günther, 1858)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Rhacophoridae > Subfamily: Rhacophorinae > Genus: Kurixalus > Species: Kurixalus appendiculatus

Polypedates appendiculatus Günther, 1858, Arch. Naturgesch., 24: 324. Syntypes: BMNH (22 specimens) according to Günther, 1859 "1858", Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus.: 79, including 1947.2.9.17 (formerly 1933.9.10.30, from the Philippines) by museum records, other syntypes not traced; lectotype designation of specimen from "Philippines" (presumably 1947.2.9.17) by designation of Boulenger, 1882, Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus., Ed. 2: 86, as "Type". Type locality: "Philippinen"; subsequently implied (apparently in error) to be "Philippines"; "Java"; "Singapore"; and "East Indies" by Günther, 1859 "1858", Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus.: 79; restricted to "Philippines" by lectotype designation.

Rhacophorus appendiculatus — Boulenger, 1882, Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus., Ed. 2: 86.

Rhacophorus phyllopygus Werner, 1900, Zool. Jahrb., Jena, Abt. Syst., 13: 494. Holotype: NHMB 1187 according to Forcart, 1946, Verh. Naturforsch. Ges. Basel, 57: 130. Type locality: "Indragiri", Sumatra, Indonesia. Synonymy by Roux, 1918, Rev. Suisse Zool., 26: 414; Van Kampen, 1923, Amph. Indo-Austral. Arch.: 255; Wolf, 1936, Bull. Raffles Mus., 12: 161; Inger, 1954, Fieldiana, Zool., 33: 374.

Rhacophorus appendiculatus appendiculatus — Smith, 1930, Bull. Raffles Mus., 3: 113.

Rhacophorus (Rhacophorus) appendiculatus — Ahl, 1931, Das Tierreich, 55: 143; Wolf, 1936, Bull. Raffles Mus., 12: 161; Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 77.

Rhacophorus (Rhacophorus) appendiculatus appendiculatus — Wolf, 1936, Bull. Raffles Mus., 12: 161.

Leptomantis appendiculatus — Iskandar and Colijn, 2000, Treubia, 31: 95.

Rhacophorus appendiculatus — Harvey, Pemberton, and Smith, 2002, Herpetol. Monogr., 16: 47, by implication.

Kurixalus appendiculatus — Yu, Zhang, and Yang, 2013, Biochem. Syst. Ecol., 47: 31; Hertwig, Schweizer, Das, and Haas, 2013, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 68: 573. 

English Names

Philippine Flying Frog (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 113).

South-east Asian Tree Frog (Das and Dutta, 1998, Hamadryad, 23: 67; Mathew and Sen, 2010, Pict. Guide Amph. NE India: 108).

Brown-eyed Tree Frog (Nutphund, 2001, Amph. Thailand: 145).

Frilled Treefrog (Chan-ard, 2003, Photograph. Guide Amph. Thailand: 154; Das, Jankowski, Makmor, and Haas, 2007, Mitt. Hamburg. Zool. Mus. Inst., 104: 164).

Rough-armed Tree Frog (Nguyen, Ho, and Nguyen, 2005, Checklist Amph. Rept. Vietnam: 39).

Frilled Tree Frog (Das, 2007, Amph. Rept. Brunei: 75).

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

Distribution

Philippines; apparently unnamed cryptic species found in Arunachal Pradesh, India, into northern Myanmar, also peninsular Myanmar and Thailand, peninsular Malaysia, Cambodia, and southern Vietnam. See comment. 

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Cambodia, India, Malaysia, Malaysia, West (Peninsular), Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam

Comment

In the Rhacophorus (Rhacophorus) appendiculatus group of Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 77 (see comment under Rhacophorus for dissenting opinion). Discussed by Bourret, 1942, Batr. Indochine: 416–420. Heyer, 1971, Fieldiana, Zool., 58: 61–82, reported on the call from Thailand. See also Berry, 1975, Amph. Fauna Peninsular Malaysia: 96–98; and Inger, 1966, Fieldiana, Zool., 52: 285–289, for account. Dring, 1979, Bull. Brit. Mus. (Nat. Hist.), Zool., 34: 211, noted that the generic status of this frog is uncertain. See account of Philippine population by Brown and Alcala, 1994, Proc. California Acad. Sci., Ser. 4, 48: 206. It seems extremely unlikely that one species of treefrog would range from eastern India to the Philippines to the islands of the Sunda Shelf; detailed study of geographic variation is warranted (DRF). Orlov, Lathrop, Murphy, and Ho, 2001, Russ. J. Herpetol., 8: 20, listed this species as part of the Vietnam fauna. Das and Dutta, 1998, Hamadryad, 23: 67, regarded this species as part of the Indian fauna. See identification table by Manthey and Grossmann, 1997, Amph. Rept. Südostasiens: 122–123, to compare this species to other rhacophorids of the Sunda Shelf region. Harvey, Pemberton, and Smith, 2002, Herpetol. Monogr., 16: 47, discussed and rejected the assignment of this species to Leptomantis by Iskandar and Colijn, 2000, Treubia, 31: 1–134. Orlov, Murphy, Ananjeva, Ryabov, and Ho, 2002, Russ. J. Herpetol., 9: 97, commented on the Vietnamese distribution. Malkmus, Manthey, Vogel, Hoffmann, and Kosuch, 2002, Amph. Rept. Mount Kinabalu: 204–206, provided an account. Chan-ard, 2003, Photograph. Guide Amph. Thailand: 154–155, provided a very brief account, map for Thailand, and photograph. Nguyen, Ho, and Nguyen, 2005, Checklist Amph. Rept. Vietnam: 39, provided specific localities for Vietnam. Dutta, 1997, Amph. India Sri Lanka: 97–98, provided systematic notes, access to literature, and range for Indian population. Das, Jankowski, Makmor, and Haas, 2007, Mitt. Hamburg. Zool. Mus. Inst., 104: 164, provided a brief description for Sarawak. Orlov, Nguyen, and Ho, 2008, Russ. J. Herpetol., 15: 67–84, provided a photograph and a key to differentiate this species from others in Vietnam. Das, 2007, Amph. Rept. Brunei: 75, provided a photograph and brief account. Das and Dutta, 2007, Hamadryad, 31: 154–181, noted a number of larval descriptions in the literature. Mathew and Sen, 2010, Pict. Guide Amph. NE India: 108, provided a brief characterization and photograph of the animal assigned to this species in northeastern India. Chan-ard, Cota, and Makchai, 2011, Amph. E. Region Thailand: 139, detailed the range in Thailand. Siler, Welton, Siler, Brown, Bucol, Diesmos, and Brown, 2011, Check List, 7: 182–195, briefly discussed this species in Aurora Province, Luzon Island, Philippines. Yu, Zhang, and Yang, 2013, Biochem. Syst. Ecol., 47: 31–37, provided evidence for the placement of this species in Kurixalus. Gonzalez, Su, Siler, Barley, Sanguila, Diesmos, and Brown, 2014, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 72: 35–41, discussed molecular biogeography in Borneo and the Philippines.  Sumarli, Grismer, Anuar, Muin, and Quah, 2015, Check List, 11(4, Art. 1679): 15, reported a specimen from Lata Tembaka, Terregganu, West Malaysia, and briefly reported on their morphology and habitat. See brief notes for Mindanao, Philippines, by Sanguila, Cobb, Siler, Diesmos, Alcala, and Brown, 2016, ZooKeys, 624: 51–52. Matsui, Kawahara, Eto, Hamidy, Ahmad, and Hossman, 2018, Alytes, 36: 170–177, reported on the mtDNA relationships of populations in Malaya, Borneo, and the Philippines, not sampling the populations from eastern India, northern Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia, peninsular Myanmar and Thailand, or Sumatra. These authors recognized a population in peninsular Malaysia as Kurixalus chaseni, this leaving the status of the populations outside of the Philippines (the imprecise type locality) uncertain. Moreover, from the evidence presented, it looks like multiple species exist within the Philippine archipelago, a result that will surprise exactly no one. Haas, Kueh, Joseph, bin Asri, Das, Hagmann, Schwander, and Hertwig, 2018, Evol. Syst., 2: 89–114, provided a brief account of morphology and natural history for the Sabah population. Nguyen, Duong, Luu, and Poyarkov, 2020, J. Nat. Hist., London, 54: 195–223, discussed the problematic nature of nominal Kurixalus appendiculatus; literature of nominal Kurixalus appendiculatus outside of the core range of the Philippines applies to unnamed cryptic species which remain unelucidated.  

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