Nyctixalus pictus (Peters, 1871)

Common Names

Sumatra Indonesian Treefrog (Dever, McGuire, Iskandar, Hamidy, and Grismer, 2026, Zootaxa, 5777: 299). 

Painted Indonesian Treefrog (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 111).

Spotted Tree Froglet (Kiew, 1987, Malayan Nat. J., 41: 418).

Spotted Tree Frog (Leong and Crane, 2002, Herpetol. Rev., 33: 62).

White-spotted Brown Frog (Nutphund, 2001, Amph. Thailand: 150).

White-spotted Treefrog (Grismer, 2012, Field Guide Amph. Rept. Seribuat Arch.: 59; Zug, 2022, Smithson. Contrib. Zool., 653: 42).

Cinnamon Treefrog (Chan-ard, 2003, Photograph. Guide Amph. Thailand: 146).

Cinnamon Frog (Das, Jankowski, Makmor, and Haas, 2007, Mitt. Hamburg. Zool. Mus. Inst., 104: 160).

Cinnamon Tree Frog (Niyomwan, Srisom, and Pawangkhanant, 2019, Field Guide Amph. Thailand: 412).

Distribution

Borneo and Palawan I., Philippines. Records from continental southeast Asia have been assigned to other species. 

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Malaysia, East (Sarawak and/or Sabah), Myanmar, Philippines

Comment

Literature of nominal Nyctixalus pictus applying to populations outside of Borneo and Palawan, Philippines, should be employed with caution given that continental records are now referred to Nyctixalus crypticus, and those from Sumatra are referred to Nyctixalus anodon. Records from India, Vietnam are dubious needing genetic confirmation (DRF). 

Comment as of 18 March 2026: See Bourret, 1942, Batr. Indochine: 4559 (as Philautus pictus); Taylor, 1962, Univ. Kansas Sci. Bull., 43: 506–509 (as Hazelia picta) and Berry, 1975, Amph. Fauna Peninsular Malaysia: 94–95. See account of Bornean population (as Philautus pictus) by Inger, 1966, Fieldiana, Zool., 52: 349–352. Brown and Alcala, 1994, Proc. California Acad. Sci., Ser. 4, 48: 187–188, provided an account. Biju, 2001, Occas. Publ. Indian Soc. Conserv. Biol., 1: 19, doubted records from Karnataka, India. Lim and Lim, 1992, Guide Amph. Rept. Singapore: 37, provided a brief account. See brief account and photo by Manthey and Grossmann, 1997, Amph. Rept. Südostasiens: 124–126. Orlov, Murphy, Ananjeva, Ryabov, and Ho, 2002, Russ. J. Herpetol., 9: 91, provided the Vietnam record but that the record is so far removed from the main range renders this record dubious. Malkmus, Manthey, Vogel, Hoffmann, and Kosuch, 2002, Amph. Rept. Mount Kinabalu: 176–177, provided an account.Pauwels, Sumontha, and Matsui, 2004, Herpetol. Rev., 35: 283, briefly discussed the range in Thailand and noted its proximity to Myanmar. Chan-ard, 2003, Photograph. Guide Amph. Thailand: 146–147, provided a very brief account, map for Thailand, and photograph. Nguyen, Ho, and Nguyen, 2005, Checklist Amph. Rept. Vietnam: 34, provided specific localities for Vietnam. Dutta, 1997, Amph. India Sri Lanka: 174, rejected a record for Karnataka, India. Das, Jankowski, Makmor, and Haas, 2007, Mitt. Hamburg. Zool. Mus. Inst., 104: 161, provided a brief description. See statement of geographic range, habitat, and conservation status in Stuart, Hoffmann, Chanson, Cox, Berridge, Ramani, and Young, 2008, Threatened Amph. World: 634. Das, 2007, Amph. Rept. Brunei: 69, provided a photograph and brief account. Grismer, Chan, Grismer, Wood, and Ahmad, 2010, Russ. J. Herpetol., 17: 147–160, reported localities from the Banjaran Bintang Mountains, northwestern peninsular Malaysia. See brief account by Grismer, 2012, Field Guide Amph. Rept. Seribuat Arch.: 59–60, for the Seribuat Archipelago, West Malaysia. 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. Mulcahy, Lee, Miller, Chand, Thura, and Zug, 2018, ZooKeys, 757: 95, provided a record from Taninthary Division, southern Myanmar. Niyomwan, Srisom, and Pawangkhanant, 2019, Field Guide Amph. Thailand: 412–413, provided a brief account (description, photographs, habitat, and range) for Thailand (in Thai). Gillespie, Ahmad, and Shia, 2021, Field Guide Frog Lower Kinabatangan Region Sabah: 39, provided a brief account, summarizing identification and life history in the Lower Kinabatangan Region, Sabah, Malaysia. Reported from Penang Hill, Penang Island, West Malaysia by Sheridan, Akil, Gendu, Low, Zou, and Heng, 2021, In N. Ruppert et al., Biodiversity of Penang Hill: 234–240.  Poyarkov, Nguyen, Popov, Geissler, Pawangkhanant, Neang, Suwannapoom, and Orlov, 2021, Russ. J. Herpetol., 28 (3A): 58, excluded Singapore from the range without comment and suggested that the Vietnam records required confirmation. Zug, 2022, Smithson. Contrib. Zool., 653: 42, briefly discussed habitat, range, and identification in Myanmar. Haas, Das, Hertwig, Bublies, and Schulz-Schaeffer, 2022, Guide to the Tadpoles of Borneo: 361–363, summarized the knowledge of habitat, reproduction, larval morphology and coloration. Herlambang, Riyanto, Munir, Hamidy, Kimura, Eto, and Mumpuni, 2022, Treubia, 49: 78, reported the species from Bunguran I., Natuna Is., Indonesia.

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• To search the NIH genetic sequence database, see GenBank
• For additional information see AmphibiaWeb report
• For information on conservation status and distribution see the IUCN Redlist
• For related information on conservation and images as well as observations see iNaturalist