Amolops Cope, 1865

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Ranidae > Genus: Amolops

Amolops Cope, 1865, Nat. Hist. Rev., N.S., 5: 117. Type species: Polypedates afghana Günther, 1858" (= Polypedates marmoratus Blyth, 1855), by monotypy.

Aemolops — Hoffmann, 1878, in Bronn (ed.), Die Klassen und Ordnungen des Thier-Reichs, 6(2): 611. Incorrect subsequent spelling.

Amo Dubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 321. Type species: Rana larutensis Boulenger, 1899, by original designation. Proposed as a subgenus of Amolops. See comment.

English Names

Cascade Frogs (Anders, 2002, in Schleich and Kästle (eds.), Amph. Rept. Nepal: 203; Li, Zhao, and Dong, 2010, Amph. Rept. Tibet: 54).

Distribution

Nepal, northern India, western and southern China to Malaya.

Comment

Inger, 1966, Fieldiana, Zool., 52: 256, noted that Amolops (sensu lato) is distinguished from Staurois by possession of its tadpole of an abdominal sucker. Dubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 321, considered Huia and Meristogenys to be subgenera of Amolops. A number of species currently placed in other genera probably belong in this genus according to M. Matsui in Frost, 1985, Amph. Species World: 453. Pang and Liu, 1992, in Jiang (ed.), Collect. Pap. Herpetol.: 101-110, reported on systematics of Chinese species. See comments under Huia and Meristogenys. Liu and Yang, 2000, Herpetologica, 56: 231-238, discussed karyological diversity within the taxon. Marmayou, Dubois, Ohler, Pasquet, and Tillier, 2000, C. R. Acad. Sci., Ser. 3, Paris, 323: 287-297, discussed a phylogenetic analysis of molecular evidence, which suggested on the basis of limited taxon sampling that Amolops is most closely related to Rana (Chalcorana) chalconota. Frost, Grant, Faivovich, Bain, Haas, Haddad, de Sá, Channing, Wilkinson, Donnellan, Raxworthy, Campbell, Blotto, Moler, Drewes, Nussbaum, Lynch, Green, and Wheeler, 2006, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 297: 139, provided evidence that Amolops is the sister taxon of Pelophylax and phylogenetically distant from Huia and Meristogenys. Che, Pang, Zhao, Wu, Zhao, and Zhang, 2007, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 43: 1-13, found Amolops to form the sister taxon of all Ranidae, with the exception of Staurois and Meristogenys + Clinotarsus. Similar results were provided by Wiens, Sukumaran, Pyron, and Brown, 2009, Evolution, 63: 1217-1231, and Pyron and Wiens, 2011, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 61: 543-583, in their study of Genbank sequences (although their tree places Amolops iriodes, Amolops daorum, Amolops archotaphus, Amolops vitreus, Amolops compotrix, and Amolops cucae as a monophyletic group imbedded within a paraphyletic Odorrana). Why this is so is not immediately clear although as at least some misidentified sequences of Odorrana were included in this study and assigned to Amolops (see comment under Amolops daorum). Alternatively, Amolops may not be monophyletic; it would be prudent to take another look at the data and terminals (DRF). In the tribe Ranini of Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 39. Scott, 2005, Cladistics, 21: 527, on the basis of sparse taxon sampling considered Staurois and Amolops to be sister taxa and placed them in a tribe Amolopini. Ngo, Murphy, Liu, Lathrop, and Orlov, 2006, Amphibia-Reptilia, 27: 81-92, reported on phylogenetics of the species of Vietnam and China. Jin, Jiang, Xie, Zheng, and Xu, 2005, Zool. Res., Kunming, 26: 61-68, reported on phylogenetics of six species of Amolops based on 12S and 16S rRNA sequences. Matsui, Shimada, Liu, Maryati, Khonsue, and Orlov, 2006, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 38: 659-666, reported on the mtDNA phylogenetics of 20 species of Amolops. Cai, Che, Pang, Zhao, and Zhang, 2007, Zootaxa, 1531: 49-55, reported on the molecular phylogenetics of Chinese species that suggested that recognition of the subgenus Amo renders the subgenus Amolops paraphyletic. Synonymies and accounts (as Staurois in the sense of Noble, 1931) of Chinese species available in Liu, 1950, Fieldiana, Zool. Mem., 2: 330-359, and Liu and Hu, 1961, Tailless Amph. China: 226-243. Bornean species reviewed and genus discussed by Inger, 1966, Fieldiana, Zool., 52: 256-278, and Inger and Gritis, 1983, Fieldiana, Zool., N.S.,, 19: 1-13. See Yang, 1991, Fieldiana, Zool., N.S.,, 63: 1-42, for a revision, key, and phylogenetic analysis of the entire genus. Pang and Liu, 1992, in Jiang (ed.), Collect. Pap. Herpetol.: 101-110, provided a morphology-based cladogram of Chinese species. Tan, 1992 "1991", in Qian et al. (eds.), Animal Sci. Res.: 44-49, provided a cytotaxomic study which included a cladogram of 11 Chinese species. Fei, Hu, Ye, and Huang, 2009, Fauna Sinica, Amph. 3: 1506-1585, provided identification keys, accounts, range maps, and figures for the Chinese species. Stuart, Bain, Phimmachak, and Spence, 2010, Herpetologica, 66 : 52-66, revised the Amolops monticola group and provided a phylogenetic tree. Dever, Fuiten, Konu, and Wilkinson, 2012, Copeia, 2012: 57-76, reported on the molecular phylogenetics and taxonomy of the Amolops marmoratus complex.

Contained taxa

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Amphibian Species of the World 5.6, an Online Reference