Hylarana

Hylarana is a genus of true frogs. They are also called golden-backed frogs. They live in tropical Asia. Scientists used to put 84 to 96 valid species in Hylarana,[2] but they looked at the frogs again. Today, scientists say four species are in Hylarana.

Hylarana
Rana macrodactyla.jpg
Hylarana macrodactyla
Scientific classification e
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Amphibia
Order: Anura
Family: Ranidae
Subfamily: Raninae
Genus: Hylarana
Tschudi, 1838
Type species
Hylarana erythraea
Schlegel, 1837
Diversity
4 species
Synonyms[1]
  • Hylorana Günther, 1864
  • Limnodytes Duméril and Bibron, 1841
  • Tenuirana Fei, Ye, and Huang, 1990
  • Zoodioctes Gistel, 1848

What they look like

Hylarana frogs can be small or large. Male frogs are 27 to 85 mm (1.1 to 3.3 in) from their noses to the ends of their bodies, and females are 38 to 92 mm (1.5 to 3.6 in). The nostrils are oval in shape and there is a piece of skin on top of them. The ear drum is not covered by skin. They have vomerine teeth and a parietal eye. The toes on their back feet are webbed, but the fingers on the front feet are not.[2]

Where they live

The frogs that scientists used to say were in Hylarana lived everywhere from Sri Lanka to the Western Ghat Mountains in India, through Nepal and southern China and Taiwan, south to Southeast Asia to the Philippines and Papua New Guinea, in Northern Australia, and tropical Africa.[3] The four species of frogs that are still in Hylarana today live in southern and southeast Asia.[4]

Scientific groups

Hylarana is in the subfamily Raninae. They are true frogs, so they are in the family Ranidae.[1] The name Hylarana comes from from the New Latin word hyle ("wood" or "forest") and rana ("frog").[2] Scientists used to think Hylarana was a subgenus of the genus Rana, but they changed their minds in 2005.[5][3] In 2006, scientists took Hylarana and split it into more genera. They treat these as junior synonyms of Hylarana.[1] In 2015, Oliver et al.[6] looked closely at Hylarana again. They said that only four species are really Hylarana sensu stricto: The other frogs were moved to Abavorana, Amnirana, Chalcorana, Humerana, Hydrophylax, Indosylvirana, Papurana, Pulchrana, and Sylvirana.

Species

Scientists used to say this genus had 84 to 96 valid species of frogs in it. But they looked closely again. Now, scientists say only four frogs are truly Hylarana:[4] Hylarana malayana was placed in Hylarana in 2021.[7]

After these changes, scientists are not sure where a few Hylarana species should be placed:[4]

Related pages

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 Darrel Frost and the American Museum of Natural History. "Hylarana Tschudi, 1838". Amphibian Species of the World 5.5, an Online Reference.
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 S.D. Biju; Sonali Garg; Stephen Mahony; Nayana Wijayathilaka; Gayani Senevirathne; Madhava Meegaskumbura (2014). "DNA barcoding, phylogeny and systematics of Golden-backed frogs (Hylarana, Ranidae) of the Western Ghats-Sri Lanka biodiversity hotspoty, with the description of seven new species". Contributions to Zoology. 83 (4): 269–335. doi:10.1163/18759866-08304004.
  3. 3.0 3.1 Anna Gawor; Ralf Hendrix; Miguel Vences; Wolfgang Böhme; Thomas Ziegler (2009). "Larval morphology in four species of Hylarana from Vietnam and Thailand with comments on the taxonomy of H. nigrovittata sensu lato (Anura: Ranidae)". Zootaxa. Magnola Press. 2051: 1–25. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.2051.1.1. ISSN 1175-5334. S2CID 56200520.
  4. 4.0 4.1 4.2 "Indosylvirana Oliver, Prendini, Kraus, and Raxworthy, 2015". Amphibian Species of the World: an Online Reference. Version 6.0. American Museum of Natural History. 2019. Retrieved 2019-10-05.
  5. Liqiao Chen; Robert W. Murphy; Amy Lathrop; Andre Ngo; Nikolai L. Orlov; Cuc Tho Ho; Ildiko L. M. Somorjai (2005). "Taxonomic Chaos in Asian Ranid Frogs: An Initial Phylogenetic Resolution" (PDF). Herpetological Journal. 15: 231–243. ISSN 1175-5334. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-07-10. Retrieved 2020-12-12.
  6. Oliver, Lauren A.; Prendini, Elizabeth; Kraus, Fred; Raxworthy, Christopher J. (2015). "Systematics and biogeography of the Hylarana frog (Anura: Ranidae) radiation across tropical Australasia, Southeast Asia, and Africa". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 90: 176–192. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2015.05.001. PMID 25987527.
  7. "Sylvirana lacrima (Sheridan and Stuart, 2018)". Amphibian Species of the World 6.0, an Online Reference. American Museum of Natural History. Retrieved July 16, 2021.