Theloderma Tschudi, 1838

Common Names

Warty Treefrogs (Li, Zhao, and Dong, 2010, Amph. Rept. Tibet: 72).

棱皮树蛙属 (Chinese: Wang, Ren, Chen, Lyu, Guo, Jiang, Chen, Li, Guo, Wang, and Che, 2020, Biodiversity Sci., 28: App. 1: 12). 

Warty Tree Frogs (Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Deepak, and Kulkarni, 2023, Fauna India Checklist, vers. 5.0 : 15). 

Bug-eyed Frogs (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 114; Li, Zhao, and Dong, 2010, Amph. Rept. Tibet: 72).

Distribution

Northeastern India to Myanmar and southern China through Indochina to Malaya, Sumatra, and Borneo.

Comment

 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: 139, considered Theloderma to be the sister taxon of Philautus. Orlov, Dutta, Ghate, and Kent, 2006, Russ. J. Herpetol., 13: 155–163, provided a brief discussion of the genus. Yu, Rao, Zhang, and Yang, 2009, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 50: 571–579, considered Theoderma to form the sister taxon of Nyctixalus and, together, all rhacophorids excluding Liuixalus and Buergeria. Li, Che, Murphy, Zhao, Zhao, Rao, and Zhang, 2009, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 53: 509–522, suggested on the basis of molecular evidence that Theloderma as currently constructed is not monophyletic. Rowley, Lê, Hoang, Dau, and Cao, 2011, Zootaxa, 3098: 1–20, reviewed the diagnoses of the species as well as the molecular data provided at that point suggested that the inclusion of Theloderma moloch (although these tissues subsequently found to be misidentified) rendered Theloderma nonmonophyletic, as does the inclusion of nominal Nyctixalus pictus (and likely all of Nyctixalus) high up within the Theloderma clade. Pyron and Wiens, 2011, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 61: 543–583, provided a tree of examplar species and confirmed the polyphyly of Theloderma (due to the placement of Theloderma moloch distant from the remaining species). Li, Li, Klaus, Rao, Hillis, and Zhang, 2013, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 110: 3441–3446, also confirmed the sister-taxon relationship of Theloderma and Nyctixalus; in their tree Theloderma moloch was imbedded (their supplemental tree figure S3) within Theloderma. Nguyen, Matsui, and Eto, 2015, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 85: 59–67, in their study of Theloderma phylogenetics on the basis of a ML 12S mtDNA tree noted that "Theloderma" moloch is not mentioned in list of taxa studied by Li et al. (2013), and presumed that this merely reflects an error in their supplemental figure. Nguyen et al. (2014) also recovered it outside of the monophyletic group of Theloderma employing the same sequences as Li et al. (2009) found "Theloderma" moloch to be outside of Theloderma and discussed the possible availability of the name Phrynoderma for that taxon should the type species, Theloderma phrynoderma, be found to be close to "Theloderma" moloch. Poyarkov, Orlov, Moiseeva, Pawangkhanant, Ruangsuwan, Vassilieva, Galoyan, Nguyen, and Gogoleva, 2015, Russ. J. Herpetol., 22: 241–280, addressed the phylogenetics of Theloderma and placed Nyctixalus as a subgenus, coined the name Stelladerma for the Theloderma horridum + Theloderma stellatum group. Sivongxay, Davankham, Phimmachak, Phoumixay, and Stuart, 2016, Zootaxa, 4147: 440, discussed the issues of misidentified tissues, inter-analytical method discrepancy and the history of the discussion and on this basis recognized Nyctixalus as distinct from Theloderma. See the revision and review of Chinese species by Hou, Yu, Chen, Liao, Zhang, Chen, Li, and Orlov, 2017, Russ. J. Herpetol., 24: 99–127. Chan, Grismer, and Brown, 2018, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 127: 1010–1019, suggested, that the Theloderma albopunctatum group was likely to contain several unnamed species. Luo, Zhao, Lan, Li, Deng, Xiao, and Zhou, 2023, Ecol. Evol., 13(e10829): 1–18, provided a phylogenetic analysis and biogeography of the species within the genus based on mtDNA and nuDNA loci, suggesting that as many as 12 unnamed species remain. Boistel, Scotti, and Bellalouna, 2025, Zootaxa, 5661: 593–600, reviewed the literature of advertisement calls within the genus.  

Contained taxa (31 sp.):

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