''Walkerana'' is a genus 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 ...

s in the family

Ranixalidae Ranixalidae is a family of frogs commonly known as the leaping frogs or Indian frogs. They are endemic to central and southern India. Genera There are two genera with a total 18 species: *''Indirana ''Indirana'' is a genus of frogs in t ...

. The genus is

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 ...

to the Western Ghats in the states of

Kerala Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South ...

and

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a States and union territories of India, state in southern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of India ...

, India. It was erected in 2016 to host three species of ''

Indirana ''Indirana'' is a genus of frogs in the family Ranixalidae. These frogs are endemic to the Western Ghats of India. They are sometimes known under the common name Indian frogs, whereas members of their parent family are named "leaping frogs" ...

'' that represented a genetically and morphologically distinct

clade A clade (), also known as a monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that are monophyletic – that is, composed of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants – on a phylogenetic tree. Rather than the English term, ...

within the then broadly defined ''Indirana''. Until '' Walkerana muduga'' was described in 2020, the genus was only known from the southernmost part of the Western Ghats south of the

Palghat Gap Palakkad Gap or Palghat Gap is a low mountain pass in the Western Ghats between Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu and Palakkad in Kerala. It has an average elevation of with a width of . The pass is located between the Nilgiri Hills to the north and ...

Etymology

This genus is named for Sally Walker, conservationist from the

Zoo Outreach Organisation Zoo Outreach Organisation (ZOO), India started off as an NGO primarily focusing on training zoo staff and bettering the circumstances of captive animals in Indian zoos. It has since evolved into an overall nature and wildlife conservation NGO, and ...

. The genus was then renamed into ''Sallywalkerana'' because of

homonymy 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, ...

with the

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

genus ''Walkerana'' Otte and Perez-Gelabert, 2009, but the latter may be ''

nomen nudum In taxonomy, a ''nomen nudum'' ('naked name'; plural ''nomina nuda'') is a designation which looks exactly like a scientific name of an organism, and may have originally been intended to be one, but it has not been published with an adequate descr ...

''.

Description

''Walkerana'' is genetically distant clade within the family Ranixalidae. It differs from its

sister taxon In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree. Definition The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram: Taxon A and t ...

''Indirana'' in having extremely reduced webbing, with one

phalange The phalanges (singular: ''phalanx'' ) are digital bones in the hands and feet of most vertebrates. In primates, the thumbs and big toes have two phalanges while the other digits have three phalanges. The phalanges are classed as long bones. ...

free of webbing on first and second toes (none in ''Indirana''), and three phalanges free on the fourth toe (2–2½ in ''Indirana''). Furthermore, the first finger is shorter than the second one in ''Walkerana'', while in ''Indirana'' (with the exception of '' I. leithii'') they are of equal length or the first finger is longer than the second.

Species

There are four recognized species: * '' Walkerana diplosticta'' (Günther, 1876) * '' Walkerana leptodactyla'' (Boulenger, 1882) * '' Walkerana muduga'' Dinesh, Vijayakumar, Ramesh, Jayarajan, Chandramouli, and Shanker, 2020 * '' Walkerana phrynoderma'' (Boulenger, 1882) Dinesh and colleagues have identified one additional species based on one specimen from north of the Palghat Gap, but did not describe it because of the poor preservation of the specimen in question. Indirana phrynoderma - Davidraju IIMG 2484 a

Indirana phrynoderma - Davidraju IIMG 2484 a

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q84591618, from2=Q27916648 Ranixalidae Amphibian genera Amphibians of Asia Frogs of India Taxa named by Neelesh Dahanukar Endemic fauna of the Western Ghats