''Rhacophorus rhodopus'' 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 ...
of
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 ...
in the moss frog
family
Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...
(
Rhacophoridae
The Rhacophoridae are a family of frogs that occur in tropical sub-Saharan Africa, South India and Sri Lanka, Japan, northeastern India to eastern China and Taiwan, south through the Philippines and Greater Sundas, and Sulawesi. They are commonly ...
). It occurs in south-eastern Asia, from India to southern China, and south to Malaysia. Previously unknown from Laos, it has now been found in
Phongsali Province
Phongsaly province ( Lao ຜົ້ງສາລີ), also spelled ''Phôngsali'', is a province of Laos in the extreme north of the country. The capital of the province is the city of Phôngsali. Phongsaly is between Yunnan (China), and Điện ...
and at
Luang Prabang
Luang Phabang, ( Lao: ຫລວງພະບາງ/ ຫຼວງພະບາງ) or ''Louangphabang'' (pronounced ), commonly transliterated into Western languages from the pre-1975 Lao spelling ຫຼວງພຣະບາງ (ຣ = silent r) ...
. Its taxonomy is disputed.
Description[Bordoloi ''et al.'' (2007)]
''R. rhodopus'' is a smallish tree frog with a pointed snout and body length of about 31–55 mm when adult, with females being larger than males. Its back is reddish-, pinkish-, or yellowich-brown without any green hues in living animals; in preserved specimens this becomes purplish brown. There are many darker spots all over the back, usually forming an X-shaped pattern behind the head and sometimes stripes across the lower back. Sometimes, there are a few large white spots on the back, also.
[Inger ''et al.'' (1999)] The hind legs and the upper sides of the arms are for the most part or entirely the color of the back; there are usually dark bands across the upperside of arms and hind legs. The sides, belly and toes are dark yellow, becoming dark pink in preserved specimens. Behind the arms, there is almost always a conspicuous large black spot on the flanks. The well-developed webbing of the toes is bright orange-red and not spotted. The eyes are light brown.
It can be distinguished from ''
R. bipunctatus'', with which it was long confused, by the smaller size (''R. bipunctatus'' has a body length of about 37–60 mm) and spotted brown back without any green or
olive
The olive, botanical name ''Olea europaea'', meaning 'European olive' in Latin, is a species of small tree or shrub in the family Oleaceae, found traditionally in the Mediterranean Basin. When in shrub form, it is known as ''Olea europaea'' ...
(''R. bipunctatus'' has a bright green to brownish green back without darker spotting). In individuals of similar size, ''R. bipunctatus'' has a much larger head.
Ecology and status
Its natural
habitat
In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...
s are subtropical or tropical moist lowland
forest
A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...
s, subtropical or tropical moist
montane forest
Montane ecosystems are found on the slopes of mountains. The alpine climate in these regions strongly affects the ecosystem because temperatures fall as elevation increases, causing the ecosystem to stratify. This stratification is a crucial f ...
s, and intermittent freshwater
marsh
A marsh is a wetland that is dominated by herbaceous rather than woody plant species.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p Marshes can often be found at ...
es. It occurs from nearly sea level to altitudes of at least 1,500 m
ASL
American Sign Language (ASL) is a natural language that serves as the predominant sign language of Deaf communities in the United States of America and most of Anglophone Canada. ASL is a complete and organized visual language that is express ...
.
''R. rhodopus'' was included in the
IUCN
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...
status assessment for ''R. bipunctatus'', with which it was then considered
synonymous
A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are all ...
, and assessed as a Species of
Least Concern
A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. T ...
due to its wide range in 2004. ''R. namdaphaensis'', which refers to the same frogs as ''R. rhodopus'', was assessed as a
Data Deficient
A data deficient (DD) species is one which has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as offering insufficient information for a proper assessment of conservation status to be made. This does not necessaril ...
species in 2004, due to uncertainties about the limits of its distribution. Altogether, when ''R. rhodopus'' is accepted as a valid species (including ''R. namdaphaensis''), it would be of Least Concern, meaning it is not threatened.
Taxonomy
''R. rhodopus'' was described in 1960, based on specimens from
Mengyang in the
of
Yunnan
Yunnan , () is a landlocked Provinces of China, province in Southwest China, the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is ...
,
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 ...
; the
holotype
A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several ...
is in the
CIB, specimen 571171. Subsequently, frogs that matched the description of ''R. rhodopus'' were also found at
Chiang Mai
Chiang Mai (, from th, เชียงใหม่ , nod, , เจียงใหม่ ), sometimes written as Chiengmai or Chiangmai, is the largest city in northern Thailand, the capital of Chiang Mai province and the second largest city in ...
and in the
Doi Chiang Dao
Doi Chiang Dao ( th, ดอยเชียงดาว, ), also known as Doi Luang Chiang Dao (, ), is a high mountain in Chiang Dao District of Chiang Mai Province, Thailand. It is one of the highest peaks of the Daen Lao Range on the Thai sid ...
mountains (
Thailand
Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...
),
Buon Luoi
Buon may refer to:
* Buon Tan (born 1967), French politician
* Tony Buon Tony Buon (born December 1960), is a British workplace psychologist, speaker, mediator and author. He is the Managing Partner of Buon Consultancy based in Edinburgh, Scotland ...
(
Vietnam
Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...
), and
Arunachal Pradesh
Arunachal Pradesh (, ) is a state in Northeastern India. It was formed from the erstwhile North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA) region, and became a state on 20 February 1987. It borders the states of Assam and Nagaland to the south. It shares int ...
(
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
). The latter were described as ''R. namdaphaensis'' in 1985; however, they were not compared with ''R. rhodopus'' at that time, only with ''
R. dulitensis''.
[Sarkar & Sanyal (1985)]
In 1999,
it was stated that ''R. rhodopus'' is a
junior synonym
The Botanical and Zoological Codes of nomenclature treat the concept of synonymy differently.
* In botanical nomenclature, a synonym is a scientific name that applies to a taxon that (now) goes by a different scientific name. For example, Linna ...
of the frog that, after much renaming due to
homonym
In linguistics, homonyms are words which are homographs (words that share the same spelling, regardless of pronunciation), or homophones (equivocal words, that share the same pronunciation, regardless of spelling), or both. Using this definition, ...
y, had become known as ''
R. bipunctatus''. But the
type specimen
In biology, a type is a particular wiktionary:en:specimen, specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally attached. In other words, a type is an example that serves to a ...
s were not examined; it was simply stated that Lui and Hu had misread some old descriptions of ''R. bipunctatus'' and that, as frogs from Vietnam were quite obviously of the same species as those from Thailand – which were believed to be ''R. bipunctatus'' –, ''R. rhodopus'' was synonymized with ''R. bipunctatus''. However, ''R. bipunctatus'' had in fact never been reported from so far to the southeast by any older author. In 2005, a similar moss frog from
Myanmar
Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...
was described as Htun Win's Treefrog (''Rhacophorus htunwini'').
[Wilkinson ''et al.'' (2005)]
The mystery was unravelled when the type specimens of ''R. bipunctatus'' and ''R. namdaphaensis'' were finally examined and compared with other specimens from southeastern Asia in 2007.
It turned out that the frogs from the border region of India, China and Myanmar, originally described as ''R. bipunctatus'', matched ''R. htunwini'', but not the frogs described as ''R. rhodopus'' and ''R. namdaphaensis''. So the actual situation seems to be that the three
taxa
In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; plural taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular nam ...
refer to two, not three species, with ''R. htunwini'' being a junior synonym of ''R. bipunctatus'' – possibly a restricted-range
endemic
Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...
of upland forest at the eastern end of the
Himalayas
The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 100 ...
, though it might occur south to
Malaysia
Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...
–, and ''R. namdaphaensis'' a junior synonym of ''R. rhodopus'', a species that ranges widely from eastern India to the east and south and also occurs in lower-lying regions.
Thus, it seems that the 1999 study compared only specimens of ''R. rhodopus'' with other specimens of ''R. rhodopus'', and therefore its conclusion that these constituted just one species was indeed correct. The mistake was rather the failure to compare even a single individual of the actual ''R. bipunctatus'' with the frogs from Thailand and Vietnam. Indeed, the authors of the 1999 study stated,
" iu and Huassumed that 'R. bipunctatus''was green, possibly because Boulenger (1882) reported that it resembled '' R. reinwardtii''.";
but that it usually ''does'' have a green back was confirmed both by the description of ''R. htunwini'' and by examination of the
lectotype
In biology, a type is a particular specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally attached. In other words, a type is an example that serves to anchor or centralizes the ...
specimen of ''R. bipunctatus''.
In fact, the separation of ''R. htunwini'' from ''R. rhodopus'' – then called ''R. bipunctatus'' – was partly due to that striking difference in dorsal coloration.
Photos
Image:Rhacophorus rhodopus.jpg, Rhacophorus rhodopus - Phu Kradueng National Park
Phu Kradueng National Park ( th, อุทยานแห่งชาติภูกระดึง), in the Si Than sub-district of Amphoe Phu Kradueng, Loei Province, is one of the best known national parks of Thailand. It has a high point ...
Footnotes
References
* (2007): Systematics of the genus ''Rhacophorus'' (Amphibia, Anura): identity of red-webbed forms and description of a new species from Assam. ''
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. ...
'' 1653: 1–20
PDF abstract and first page*
* (1999): Frogs of Vietnam: a report on new collections. ''
Fieldiana Zool.'' 92: 1–46
PDF fulltext* (1960): Preliminary report of Amphibia from southern Yunnan. ''Acta Zoologica Sinica'' 11(4): 509–533.
hinese with English abstract* (1985): Amphibia. ''Records of the Zoological Survey of India'' 82: 285–295, plate 1.
*
* (2005): A new species of ''Rhacophorus'' (Anura: Rhacophoridae) from Myanmar (Burma). ''Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences'' 56(4): 42–52
PDF fulltext
{{Taxonbar, from=Q2707430
rhodopus
Amphibians of China
Frogs of India
Amphibians of Laos
Amphibians of Myanmar
Amphibians of Thailand
Fauna of Tibet
Amphibians of Vietnam
Amphibians described in 1960
Taxonomy articles created by Polbot