Scutiger Theobald, 1868

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Megophryidae > Genus: Scutiger

Scutiger Theobald, 1868, J. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 37: 83. Type species: Bombinator sikimmensis Blyth, 1854, by monotypy.

Cophophryne Boulenger, 1887, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Ser. 5, 20: 406. Replacement name for Scutiger Theobald, 1868, thought to be preoccupied by Scutigera Lamarck, 1801.

Aelurophryne Boulenger, 1919, Rec. Indian Mus., 16: 469. Type species: Bufo mammatus Günther, 1896, by monotypy. Synonymy (with Cophophryne) by Procter, 1922, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Ser. 9, 9: 585. Synonymy (with Scutiger) by Noble, 1931, Biol. Amph.: 493. Status as subgenus rejected by Fu, Lathrop, and Murphy, 1997, Asiat. Herpetol. Res., 7: 32-37.

Aelurolalax Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 14. Type species: Megalophrys weigoldi Vogt, 1924, by original designation. Proposed as a subgenus of Scutiger.

English Names

Lazy Toads (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 86; Li, Zhao, and Dong, 2010, Amph. Rept. Tibet: 14).

Distribution

High altitudes (1000-5300 m) of southwestern China (including Xizang), northern Myanmar, Nepal, and northern India.

Comment

See comment under Oreolalax. Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 14-25, formulated a system of subgenera (Scutiger, Aelurolalax, and Oreolalax [now considered a distinct genus]); in the same paper he recognized two species groups in the subgenus Scutiger on the basis of overall similarity: 1) the Scutiger sikimmensis group (including Scutiger boulengeri, Scutiger nyingchiensis, Scutiger sikimmensis, Scutiger nepalensis), the Scutiger mammatus group (including Scutiger glandulatus and Scutiger mammatus). Fu, Lathrop, and Murphy, 1997, Asiat. Herpetol. Res., 7: 32-37, presented a discussion of phylogeny within the taxon, criticizing the earlier work of Ye, Fei, Wi, and Xu, 1992, Acta Herpetol. Sinica, 1-2: 27-39. See also Fei and Ye, 1990, Acta Zool. Sinica, 36: 420-428, for phylogenetic discussion. Fu, Lathrop, and Murphy, 1997, Asiat. Herpetol. Res., 7, noted that the subgenus Scutiger could not be defended as monophyletic and therefore rejected the subgeneric arrangement suggested previously by Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 15. Fu, Lathrop, and Murphy, 1997, Asiat. Herpetol. Res., 7: 32-37, presented a discussion of phylogeny within the taxon. Delorme and Dubois, 2001, Alytes, 19: 141-153, also arrived at the conclusion that the subgenus Scutiger was paraphyletic with respect to Aelurophryne but "suggest[ed] to keep the these two subgenera for the time being." Fei, Ye, Huang, Jiang, and Xie, 2005, Illust. Key Chinese Amph.: 61-67, provided keys to the species of China. Delorme, Dubois, Grosjean, and Ohler, 2006, Alytes, 24: 13, suggested that apomorphies delimiting the subgenus Scutiger are "maxillary teeth small or absent; presence of nuptial 'balls' (swellings?) beneath digit III of the reproductive male". However, Delorme and Dubois, 2001, Alytes, 19: 150, figure 3 characters in support of the paraphyly of Scutiger with respect to Aelurophryne (although what characters these are is not retrievable from the paper), so it remains unclear what the status of the nominal subgenera in Scutiger actually are. Fu, Weadick, and Bi, 2007, J. Zool., London, 273: 315-325, provided evidence that the subgenus Scutiger is paraphyletic with respect to Aelurophryne and that Scutiger is phylogenetically distant from Oreolalax. Fei, Hu, Ye, and Huang, 2009, Fauna Sinica, Amph. 2: 165-246, provided accounts and keys to the species in China. Chen, Bi, and Fu, 2009, Mol. Ecol., 18: 2856-2876, discussed the molecular relationships among Scutiger boulengeri, Scutiger mammatus, Scutiger glandulatus, and Scutiger tuberculatus, and suggested extension mtDNA introgrssion among the species as well as a cryptic species masquerading as Scutiger mammatus. Pyron and Wiens, 2011, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 61: 543-583, in their study of Genbank sequences, provided a tree of their exemplar species and suggested that Scutiger is the sister taxon of Oreolalax.

Contained taxa

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