Hoplobatrachus tigerinus (Daudin, 1802)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Dicroglossidae > Subfamily: Dicroglossinae > Genus: Hoplobatrachus > Species: Hoplobatrachus tigerinus

Rana tigerina Daudin, 1802 "An. XI", Hist. Nat. Rain. Gren. Crap., Quarto: 64. Holotype: Animal figured on pl. 20, of the original; originally in MNHNP, now lost. Type locality: "Bengale", India.

Rana tigrinaMerrem, 1820, Tent. Syst. Amph.: 174; Kelaart, 1853, Prodr. Faunae Zeylan., 1: 192; Günther, 1859 "1858", Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus.: 9. Incorrect subsequent spelling.

Rana picta Gravenhorst, 1829, Delic. Mus. Zool. Vratislav., 1: 39. Type(s): "museo Lampeano", current status unknown. Type locality: Unknown. Synonymy by Duméril and Bibron, 1841, Erp. Gen., 6: 376; Günther, 1859 "1858", Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus.: 10; provisional synonymy by Boulenger, 1920, Rec. Indian Mus., 20: 17. Primary homonym of Rana picta Gravenhorst, 1807, if not identical (see record in incertae sedis at level of Anura—DRF.)

Rana tigerinaBarbour, 1912, Mem. Mus. Comp. Zool., 44: 63.

Rana (Fejervarya) tigrinaBolkay, 1915, Anat. Anz., 48: 175.

Rana (Rana) tigrinaBoulenger, 1920, Rec. Indian Mus., 20: 6.

Dicroglossus tigrinusDeckert, 1938, Sitzungsber. Ges. Naturforsch. Freunde Berlin, 1938: 138.

Rana tigrina tigrinaSmith, 1940, Rec. Indian Mus., 42: 465–486.

Rana tigerina tigerinaMertens, 1969, Stuttgart. Beit. Naturkd., 197: 17.

Rana (Dicroglossus) tigerina tigerinaDubois, 1974, Bull. Mus. Natl. Hist. Nat. Paris, Ser. 3, Zool., 213: 341–411.

Rana (Euphlyctis) tigerinaDubois, 1981, Monit. Zool. Ital., N.S., Suppl., 15: 239, by implication.

Euphlyctis tigerinaPoynton and Broadley, 1985, Ann. Natal Mus., 27: 124, by implication.

Limnonectes (Hoplobatrachus) tigerinusDubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 59.

Tigrina tigrinaFei, Ye, and Huang, 1990, Key to Chinese Amph.: 144. Incorrect subsequent spelling of the species name.

Hoplobatrachus tigerinusDubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 315.

English Names

Golden Frog (Rana tigerina: Kelaart, 1853, Prodr. Faunae Zeylan., 1: 192).

Bull Frog (Jerdon, 1853, J. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 22: 531).

Indian Bull Frog (Ananjeva, Borkin, Darevsky, and Orlov, 1988, Dict. Amph. Rept. Five Languages: 129; Ahmed, Das, and Dutta, 2009, Amph. Rept. NE India: 38; Mathew and Sen, 2010, Pict. Guide Amph. NE India: 35).

Tiger Frog (Minton, 1966, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 134: 54; Khan, 1979, Biologia, Lahore, 25: 46; Schleich, Anders, and Kästle, 2002, in Schleich and Kästle (eds.), Amph. Rept. Nepal: 79).

Tiger Peters Frog (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 99).

Indian Bullfrog (CITES; Daniels, 2005, Amph. Peninsular India: 188; Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Deepak, and Kulkarni, 2023, Fauna India Checklist, vers. 5.0 : 3). 

Asian Green and Tan Bullfrog (Zug, 2022, Smithson. Contrib. Zool., 653: 20). 

Distribution

Low to moderate (below 2200 m) elevations in Nepal, Bhutan, western and central Myanmar (Bago, Chin, Kachin, Magway, Mandalay, Rakhine, Sagaing, Shan, Yangon) through Bangladesh and India to northern Pakistan and south to the Western and Eastern Ghats (as well as the oceanic islands of Anjediva, Devagadgudda, and Kurmagadh Is., off the coast of Karnataka); central-northeastern Afghanistan (Khost, close to the Khyber Pass); Andaman Islands (North Andaman, Middle Andaman, and South Andaman), India; introduced on Madagascar and the Maldives.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan

Likely/Controversially Present: Bhutan

Introduced: Madagascar, Maldives

Comment

Larval development described (as Rana tigerina) by Bhati, 1969, Agra Univ. J. Res., Sci., 18: 1–14. A larval staging table provided by Agarwal and Niazi, 1977, Proc. Indian Acad. Sci., Ser. B, 47: 73–92. Larval mouthpart development reported by Agarwal and Niazi, 1980, Proc. Indian Acad. Sci. (Animal Sci.), 89: 127–131. In the Hoplobatrachus tigerinus group of Dubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 315 (following Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 60). See also Dubois, 1974, Bull. Mus. Natl. Hist. Nat. Paris, Ser. 3, Zool., 213: 341–411. Zhao and Adler, 1993, Herpetol. China: 148, noted that previous Chinese records of Hoplobatrachus tigerinus (as Rana tigerina) were based on specimens of Hoplobatrachus rugulosus (formerly known as Rana tigerina rugulosa). See account by Dutta and Manamendra-Arachchi, 1996, Amph. Fauna Sri Lanka: 99–103. Choudhury, Hussain, Buruah, Saikia, and Sengupta, 2002, Hamadryad, 26: 278, commented on the range in Assam, India. Chanda, 2002, Handb. Indian Amph.: 136–141, provided a brief account (as Rana tigerina). Anders, 2002, in Schleich and Kästle (eds.), Amph. Rept. Nepal: 234–243, provided an account for the Nepal population. See brief account by Shrestha, 2001, Herpetol. Nepal: 78–79. Andreone, Glaw, Nussbaum, Raxworthy, Vences, and Randrianirina, 2003, J. Nat. Hist., London, 37: 2119–2149, discussed the occurrence of this species on Nosy Be. Glaw and Vences, 2007, Field Guide Amph. Rept. Madagascar, Ed. 3: 98, provided a brief account for Madagascar. Sarkar, Biswas, and Ray, 1992, State Fauna Ser., 3: 85–86, provided a brief account for West Bengal, India. Dutta, 1997, Amph. India Sri Lanka: 119–120, provided range in India, comments on misidentifications in the literature, and a partial bibliography. Khan, 2006, Amph. Rept. Pakistan: 60–62, provided an account for Pakistan. Ao, Bordoloi, and Ohler, 2003, Zoos' Print J., 18: 1117–1125, provided a specific locality for Nagaland, northeastern India. Daniels, 2005, Amph. Peninsular India: 188–191, provided an account for peninsular India. Devi and Shamungou, 2006, J. Exp. Zool. India, 9: 317–324, provided a record (as Limnonectes tigerinus) for Manipur, northeastern India. Ahmed, Das, and Dutta, 2009, Amph. Rept. NE India: 38, provided a brief account for northeastern India. Mathew and Sen, 2010, Pict. Guide Amph. NE India: 35–36, provided a brief characterization and photographs. Mahony, Hasan, Kabir, Ahmed, and Hossain, 2009, Hamadryad, 34: 80–94. See Shah and Tiwari, 2004, Herpetofauna Nepal: 55, for brief account for Nepal. Hasan, Islam, Khan, Alam, Kurabayashi, Igawa, Kuramoto, and Sumida, 2012, Zool. Sci., Tokyo, 29: 162–172, using molecular techniques reported genetic distances as high as 6% among samples within Bangladesh, suggesting cryptic species diversity (including what is now Hoplobatrachus litoralis). The recognition of two species from the region of the imprecise type locality (Bengale) will likely require recognition of a neotype. Masroor, 2012, Contr. Herpetol. N. Pakistan: 62–64, provided an account for northern Pakistan. Sivaprasad, 2013, Common Amph. Kerala: 54–55, provided a brief account, photograph, and dot map for Kerala, India. See Subba, Aravind, and Ravikanth, 2016, Check List, 13(1: 2033): 7–8, for Sikkim, India, records. See localities and range map for Afghanistan by Wagner, Bauer, Leviton, Wilms, and Böhme, 2016, Proc. California Acad. Sci., Ser. 4, 63: 457–565. Hasan, Islam, Khan, Wanichanon, Kurabayashi, and Sumida, 2017, Asian Herpetol. Res., 8: 27–38, reported on crossing experiments with Hoplobatrachus chinensis (as Hoplobatrachus rugulosus) and Hoplobatrachus litoralisHarikrishnan and Vasudevan, 2018, Alytes, 36: 249, commented on the distribution, previous controversy on identifications,  and natural history in the Andaman Islands, India. Mohanty and Measey, 2019, PeerJ, 6(e5698): 1–20, reported on the trophic impact of the introduced population in the Andaman Island, India. O'Connell, Aryal, Sherchan, Dhakal, Chaudhary, and Karmacharya, 2019, J. Nat. Hist., London, 53: 1421–1437, reported on the Kathmandu Valley population, Nepal. Deuti, Sethy, and Ray, 2014, Rec. Zool. Surv. India, 114: 131–132, provided a  brief account for the Eastern Ghats population, India. Sreekumar and Dinesh, 2020, Rec. Zool. Surv. India, 120: 33–40, discussed the range in Maharashtra, India, in terms of agro-climatic zones. Prasad, Gautam, Gupta, Murthy, Ramesh, Shinde, and Das, 2020, Zootaxa, 4851: 450–476, reported on morphology and advertisement call for a population in the Panna Tiger Reserve, Madhya Pradesh, central India. See comments by Hakim, Trageser, Ghose, Das, Rashid, and Rahman, 2020, Check List, 16: 1239–1268, who reported the species from Lawachara National Park, Sylhet Division, northeastern Bangladesh. Ahmad and Mim, 2020, IRCF Rept. & Amph., 27: 36–41, reported specimens from the Bandarban District, southeastern Bangladesh.  Purkayastha, Khan, and Roychoudhury, 2020, in Roy et al. (eds.), Socio-economic and Eco-biological Dimensions in Resource use and Conservation, Environmental Science and Engineering: 225–233, provided a record for Rowa Wildlife Sanctuary, Tripura, India. Mohanty, Crottini, Garcia, and Measey, 2021, Biol. Invasions, 23: 69–81, reported on a risk analysis for non-native invasion of this species worldwide. Khatiwada, Wang, Zhao, Xie, and Jiang, 2021, Asian Herpetol. Res., 12: 1–35, discussed the species in Nepal. Decemson, Gouda, Lalbiakzuala, Lalmuansanga, Hmar, Mathipi, and Lalremsanga, 2021, J. Threatened Taxa, 13: 17918–17929, provided the record for Dampa Tiger Reserve, Mamit District, Mizoram, India. Akram, Rais, López-Hervas, Tarvin, Saeed, Bolnick, and Cannatella, 2021, Ecol. Evol., 11: 14175–14216, provided genetically-confirmed records from Rawalpindi District, Punjab Province, Pakistan, as well as briefly discussing the systematics of the species. Rais, Ahmed, Sajjad, Akram, Saeed, Hamid, and Abid, 2021, ZooKeys, 1062: 157–175, included this species in an identification key to the amphibian species of Pakistan as well as providing a photograph. Zug, 2022, Smithson. Contrib. Zool., 653: 20 , briefly discussed identification, habitat, and range in Myanmar, and noted that the binomial represents a species complex. Srinivasulu and Kumar, 2022, J. Threatened Taxa, 14: 21268, reported the species from the state of Telangana, south-central India. Rabbe, Jaman, Alam, Rahman, and Sarker, 2022, Amph. Rept. Conserv., 16: 226–234, provided records for northwestern Bangladesh. Thongproh, Chunskul, Sringurngam, Waiprom, Makchai, Cota, Duengkae, Duangjai, Hasan, Chuaynkern, and Chuaynkern, 2022, Agr. Nat. Res., Thailand, 56: 1135–1152, noted that records of this species from Thailand are assignable to Hoplobatrachus crassus. Reported from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, northern Pakistan by Majid, Azim, Nawaz, and Ud Din, 2023, Asian J. Res. Zool., 6: 56. Hegde and Kadadevaru, 2022, Rec. Zool. Surv. India, 122: 425–431, reported the species from Anjediva, Devagadgudda, and Kurmagadh Is., off the coast of Karnataka, India.

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