Search tool	Example of search string in box	What that means to the database
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	Hyl*	Will find all uses of "Hyl . . ." anywhere in a record: e.g., Hylarana, Hyla, Hylidae, Hylinae, Hylaedactyla.
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	*Hyla	Will find all uses of ". . . hyla" anywhere in a record: e.g., Hyla, Hylidae, Plectrohyla, Ptychadena hylaea, Adenomera hylaedactyla
	Hyla	Will find all records that contain stand-alone uses of Hyla: e.g., Hyla, Hyla arenicolor
Strings of words without quotation marks	Lithobates pipiens	Interprets this as "Lithobates OR pipiens" so will find the union of all records that contain either "Lithobates" or "pipiens": e.g., Lithobates omiltemanus, Hylorana pipiens
Strings of word with quotation marks	"Lithobates pipiens"	Interprets this as "Lithobates AND pipiens" so will return all records that have the character string "Lithobates pipiens" anywhere within a record: e.g., all members of the Lithobates pipiens complex.
AND statement. Means that the results of the search must include both words held together by an AND	Lithobates AND pipiens	Same as "Lithobates pipiens"
OR statement. Means that the results of the search will all records that have either of the terms held together by an OR	Lithobates OR "Costa Rica"	Recovers all records that contain the word "Lithobates" or "Costa Rica": 402 records inasmuch as this will include all records for the entire amphibian fauna of Costa Rica
Combining Boolean operators within the Basic Search box (AND, OR, NOT, quotation marks)	Lithobates AND "Costa Rica" NOT forreri	Recovers only records that contain the word Lithobates AND "Costa Rica", but excludes any record that contains the word "forreri" in any part of the record: 9 records
Printable HELP file

Search tool	Example of search string in box	What that means to the database
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	Hyl*	Will find all uses of "Hyl . . ." anywhere in a record: e.g., Hylarana, Hyla, Hylidae, Hylinae, Hylaedactyla.
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	*Hyla	Will find all uses of ". . . hyla" anywhere in a record: e.g., Hyla, Hylidae, Plectrohyla, Ptychadena hylaea, Adenomera hylaedactyla
Single word	Hyla	Will find all records that contain stand-alone uses of Hyla: e.g., Hyla, Hyla arenicolor
Strings of words without quotation marks	Lithobates pipiens	Interprets this as "Lithobates OR pipiens" so will find the union of all records that contain either "Lithobates" or "pipiens": e.g., Lithobates omiltemanus, Hylorana pipiens
Strings of word with quotation marks	"Lithobates pipiens"	Interprets this as "Lithobates AND pipiens" so will return all records that have the character string "Lithobates pipiens" anywhere within a record: e.g., all members of the Lithobates pipiens complex.
AND statement. Means that the results of the search must include both words held together by an AND	Lithobates AND pipiens	Same as "Lithobates pipiens"
OR statement. Means that the results of the search will all records that have either of the terms held together by an OR	Lithobates OR "Costa Rica"	Recovers all records that contain the word "Lithobates" or "Costa Rica": 402 records inasmuch as this will include all records for the entire amphibian fauna of Costa Rica
Combining Boolean operators within the Basic Search box (AND, OR, NOT, quotation marks)	Lithobates AND "Costa Rica" NOT forreri	Recovers only records that contain the word Lithobates AND "Costa Rica", but excludes any record that contains the word "forreri" in any part of the record: 9 records
Printable HELP file

Pelobates balcanicus Karaman, 1928

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Pelobatidae > Genus: Pelobates > Species: Pelobates balcanicus

Pelobates syriacus balcanicus Karaman, 1928, Bull. Soc. Sci. Skopkje, Sect. Sci. Nat., 4: 130. Type(s): Mus. Zool., Skopkje, Macedonia; destroyed in 1963 earthquake according to C. Dufresnes, personal commun., 4 July 2019). Type locality: Environs of the Lakes of Prespa at Dojran, as well as of Skilje and Stip [Serbia]; restricted to Doiran Lake, Macedonia, by Mertens and Müller, 1940, Abh. Senckenb. Naturforsch. Ges., 451: 16. Status rejected by Eiselt, 1988 "1986", Ann. Naturhist. Mus. Wien, Ser. B, 90: 51-59.

Pelobates balcanicus — Dufresnes, Strachinis, Tzoras, Litvinchuk, and Denoël, 2019, ZooKeys, 859: 145.

Pelobates balcanicus balcanicus — Dufresnes, Strachinis, Tzoras, Litvinchuk, and Denoël, 2019, ZooKeys, 859: 146.

Pelobates balcanicus chloeae Dufresnes, Strachinis, Tzoras, Litvinchuk, and Denoël, 2019, ZooKeys, 859: 146. Holotype: NHMC 80.2.15.10, by original designation. Type locality: "Strofylia meadows, near the village of Metochi, Peloponnese, Greece (38.1239°N, 21.3858°E, 1 m a.s.l.). Coastal sandy meadows with shallow ponds". http://zoobank.org/A1C08645-8307-49EF-A2EB-7F09D7BCC89D

English Names

Balkans Spadefoot (Dufresnes, 2019, Amph. Eur., N. Afr., & Middle East: 58).

Distribution

Balkan Peninsula, 0–920 m elevation in allopatric segments; 1) northern to central Serbia, (2) southern Romania in the Danube valley to the Black Sea coast towards the Bessarabian coast and (3) south to eastern and western Bulgaria as well as extreme east-central Albania, North Macedonia, east into European Turkey, and south along the Ionian coast and then west to the Adriatic coast of Greece; isolated population on the Pelopennesian peninsula.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Turkey

Comment

Prior to the publication of Dufresnes, Strachinis, Tzoras, Litvinchuk, and Denoël, 2019, ZooKeys, 859: 131–158, the species was considered a race of Pelobates syriacus or not distinct from that species whatsoever (Eiselt, 1988 "1986", Ann. Naturhist. Mus. Wien, Ser. B, 90: 51-59). Szabolcs, Mizsei, Jablonski, Vági, Mester, Végvári, and Lengyel, 2017, Amphibia-Reptilia, 38: 435–448, provided a dot map and discussion of range in Albania (as Pelobates syriacus). Phylogeographic study of Pelobates provided the evidence whereby Dufresnes, Strachinis, Tzoras, Litvinchuk, and Denoël, 2019, ZooKeys, 859: 131–158, recognized this species. Dufresnes, Strachinis, Suriadna, Mykytynets, Cogǎlniceanu, Székely, Vukov, Arntzen, Wielstra, Lymberakis, Geffen, Gafny, Kumlutaş, Ilgaz, Candan, Mizsei, Szabolcs, Kolenda, Smirnov, Géniez, Lukanov, Crochet, Dubey, Perrin, Litvinchuk, and Denoël, 2019, Mol. Ecol., 28: 3257–3270, reported on the hybrid zone with Pelobates syriacus. See Dufresnes, 2019, Amph. Eur., N. Afr., & Middle East: 58, for brief summary of identifying morphology and biology, a range map, as well as a photograph. Koynova, Marinova, and Natchev, 2022, Herpetol. Notes, 15: 303–305, reported specimens from Vetrishte, Shumen Province, northeastern Bulgaria. Mollov, Natchev, Koynova, Kambourov, Rashkov, Dimitrov, Todorov, Petrova, Vladov, and Uzunov, 2022, Ecol. Balkanica, Spec. Edit. 5: 43–74, discussed the presence of this species (as Pelobates syriacus) in protected areas of southeastern Bulgaria.

External links:

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For access to general information see Wikipedia
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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 information on distribution, habitat, and conservation see the Map of Life
For related information on conservation and images as well as observations see iNaturalist
For access to available specimen data for this species, from over 350 scientific collections, go to Vertnet.