''Odorrana tormota'', also known as the concave-eared torrent frog, is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

frog A frog is any member of a diverse and largely Carnivore, carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order (biology), order Anura (ανοὐρά, literally ''without tail'' in Ancient Greek). The oldest fossil "proto-f ...

native to

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. Its distribution is restricted to

Huangshan Mountains Huangshan (),Bernstein, pp. 125–127. literally meaning the Yellow Mountain(s), is a mountain range in southern Anhui Province in eastern China. It was originally called “Yishan”, and it was renamed because of a legend that Emperor Xuanyu ...

Anhui Anhui , (; formerly romanized as Anhwei) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the East China region. Its provincial capital and largest city is Hefei. The province is located across the basins of the Yangtze River ...

and

Jiande is a county-level city of Zhejiang Province, East China, it is under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Hangzhou. History During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Jiande was the capital of Yanzhou Prefecture. On account of this, Jiand ...

and Anji counties in northern

Zhejiang Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by Jiang ...

. It occurs in fast-flowing streams and the surrounding habitats, and breeds in streams. The informally assigned common name for frogs in this genus (and for frogs in certain other genera) is ''

torrent frog Torrent frogs are a number of unrelated frogs that prefer to inhabit small rapid-flowing mountain or hill streams with a lot of torrents. They are generally smallish neobatrachians with a greyish-brown and usually darkly mottled back, giving them e ...

''.

Taxonomy

This species was formerly placed in the genus '' Amolops'' and later on separated in a

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispec ...

genus ''Wurana''. It was eventually recognized to belong in the

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

Odorrana ''Odorrana'' (commonly known as the odorous frog) is a genus of true frogs (Ranidae) from East Asia and surrounding regions. Many of these frogs inhabit fast-flowing mountain streams, and they typically have a remarkably pointed snout, as evidenc ...

'' where it is perhaps closely related to '' O. versabilis'' and the long-snout torrent frog (''O. nasica'') which also was for long placed in ''Amolops''. The informally assigned common name for frogs in this genus (and for frogs in certain other genera) is ''

Ultrasonic communication

Concave-eared torrent frog is the first frog (and the first non-mammalian vertebrate) demonstrated to both produce and perceive

ultrasonic Ultrasound is sound waves with frequencies higher than the upper audible limit of human hearing. Ultrasound is not different from "normal" (audible) sound in its physical properties, except that humans cannot hear it. This limit varies fr ...

frequencies. These frogs' preferred habitat is adjacent to rapidly moving water which produces perpetual low-frequency background noise. Thus, the use of high-frequency calls is believed to facilitate intraspecific communication within the frogs' noisy environment. Concave-eared torrent frogs have extremely thin

eardrum In the anatomy of humans and various other tetrapods, the eardrum, also called the tympanic membrane or myringa, is a thin, cone-shaped membrane that separates the external ear The outer ear, external ear, or auris externa is the extern ...

s recessed in their ears, which allows for the ear bones that connect the drum to sound processing part of the ear to be shorter and lighter. Most frogs have thick eardrums close to the surface of the skin and can only hear frequencies below 12

kilohertz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that one h ...

. Concave-eared torrent frogs have been recorded chirping at 128 kHz.

References

* (2007): Paraphyly of Chinese ''Amolops'' (Anura, Ranidae) and phylogenetic position of the rare Chinese frog, ''Amolops tormotus''. ''

Zootaxa ''Zootaxa'' is a peer-reviewed scientific mega journal for animal taxonomists. It is published by Magnolia Press (Auckland, New Zealand). The journal was established by Zhi-Qiang Zhang in 2001 and new issues are published multiple times a week. ...

'' 1531: 49–55
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External links

* ttp://www.livescience.com/animalworld/060315_ultrasonic_frogs.html Live Science: Ultrasonic Frogs Croak in Secretbr>Science News for Kids: Ultrasonic Frogs Raise the Pitch
{{Taxonbar, from=Q673379 Odorrana Amphibians described in 1977 Endemic fauna of China Amphibians of China

Taxonomy

Ultrasonic communication

See also

References

External links