Limnonectes blythii (Boulenger, 1920)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Dicroglossidae > Subfamily: Dicroglossinae > Genus: Limnonectes > Species: Limnonectes blythii

Rana fusca Blyth, 1856 "1855", J. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 24: 719. Types: Not stated; presumably ZSIC; 3 specimens according to Emerson and Ward, 1998, Zool. J. Linn. Soc., 122: 544. Sclater, 1892, List Batr. Indian Mus.: 4, mentioned ZSIC 9076-85 (2 adults and 8 tadpoles), of which only ZSIC 9077 was located by Chanda, Das, and Dubois, 2001 "2000", Hamadryad, 25: 109. Type locality: "Tenasserim valley", Myanmar, although Sclater, 1892, List Batr. Indian Mus.: 4, gave "Pegu" (= Bago, Myanmar), as the locality of the syntypes. Junior homonym of Rana fusca Roessel, 1758, and Rana fusca Meyer, 1795. Considered incertae sedis within the Limnonectes grunniens group by Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 63.

Rana (Rana) macrodon var. blythii Boulenger, 1920, Rec. Indian Mus., 20: 43–45. Replacement name for Rana fusca Blyth, 1855.

Rana blythi — Taylor, 1962, Univ. Kansas Sci. Bull., 43: 386.

Rana blythii — Inger, 1966, Fieldiana, Zool., 52: 162–175.

Limnonectes (Limnonectes) blythii — Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 63, by implication.

English Names

Blyth's Frog (Cochran, 1961, Living Amph. World: 158; Ananjeva, Borkin, Darevsky, and Orlov, 1988, Dict. Amph. Rept. Five Languages: 121; Lim and Lim, 1992, Guide Amph. Rept. Singapore: 27).

Blyth's Giant Frog (Grismer, 2012, Field Guide Amph. Rept. Seribuat Arch.: 67).

Malayan Giant Frog (Kiew, 1987, Malayan Nat. J., 41: 417; Lim and Lim, 1992, Guide Amph. Rept. Singapore: 27; Chan-ard, 2003, Photograph. Guide Amph. Thailand: 114).

Blyth's Wart Frog (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 99).

Giant Mountain Frog (Nutphund, 2001, Amph. Thailand: 105).

Asian Giant Stream Frog (Nguyen, Ho, and Nguyen, 2005, Checklist Amph. Rept. Vietnam: 21).

Blyth's Fanged Frog (Zug and Mulcahy, 2020 "2019", Amph. Rept. S. Tanintharyi: 36). 

Blyth's Broad-headed Frog (Zug, 2022, Smithson. Contrib. Zool., 653: 20).

Distribution

Peninsular and eastern Myanmar (Mon, Tanintharyi, Kayah) through western and peninsular Thailand (including Tarutao Island) through Malaya to Singapore, Sumatra, Borneo, and Bunguran and Serasan Is. (Indonesia); records for Laos and Vietnam are apparently based on misidentifications (see comment).

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Indonesia, Malaysia, Malaysia, West (Peninsular), Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand

Comment

In the Limnonectes (Limnonectes) grunniens group of Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 63. See accounts by Boulenger, 1920, Rec. Indian Mus., 20: 43; Taylor, 1962, Univ. Kansas Sci. Bull., 43: 386–390; and by Inger, 1966, Fieldiana, Zool., 52: 162–175, who removed this species from the synonymy of Rana macrodon, where it had been placed by Boulenger, 1912, in Robinson (ed.), Vert. Fauna of the Malay Peninsula: 233; and Berry, 1975, Amph. Fauna Peninsular Malaysia: 77. See also Dring, 1979, Bull. Brit. Mus. (Nat. Hist.), Zool., 34: 197, whose stated distribution excluded Indochina north of Changwat Tak, Thailand. See comment under Limnonectes leporinus. See comments by Inger, Orlov, and Darevsky, 1999, Fieldiana, Zool., N.S., 92: 16–18, who noted that the Vietnam samples (presumably misidentified Limnonectes poilani) differed significantly from the Malayan populations. Emerson and Ward, 1998, Zool. J. Linn. Soc., 122: 537–553, presented molecular evidence that "Rana blythii" is a paraphyletic complex of species distributed phylogenetically throughout the Limnonectes grunniens group and this is consistent with the results of Chen, Murphy, Lathrop, Ngo, Orlov, Ho, and Somorjai, 2005, Herpetol. J., 15: 237. See brief account and photo by Manthey and Grossmann, 1997, Amph. Rept. Südostasiens: 93–95. Orlov, Murphy, Ananjeva, Ryabov, and Ho, 2002, Russ. J. Herpetol., 9: 87, reported the species in central Vietnam and Laos, but also reported it in Philippines, casting some doubt of identification. Further, Nutphund, 2001, Amph. Thailand: 105, provided a brief characterization and photograph (as Rana blythii). Stuart, 1999, in Duckworth et al. (eds.), Wildlife in Lao PDR: 45, reported the range in Laos along with a statement of the lack of taxonomic clarity in that country. Stuart, Sok, and Neang, 2006, Raffles Bull. Zool., 54: 129–155, considered the Laos record as based on misidentified Limnonectes poilani. Chan-ard, 2003, Photograph. Guide Amph. Thailand: 114–115, provided a very brief account, map for Thailand, and photograph. Leong and Lim, 2003, Raffles Bull. Zool., 51: 125, provided records from Raub District, Pahang, West Malaysia. Nguyen, Ho, and Nguyen, 2005, Checklist Amph. Rept. Vietnam: 21, provided specific localities for Vietnam and (p. 148) and a photograph. (These records based on misidentifications—R. Bain, personal commun.). Reported for Pulau Langkawi, Kadeh, northwestern West Malaysia, by Grismer, Youmans, Wood, Ponce, Wright, Jones, Johnson, Sanders, Gower, Yaakob, and Lim, 2006, Hamadryad, 30: 61–74. On the basis of an mtDNA study of phylogeny, Zhang, Nie, Peng, Ge, Wang, Xu, and Tang, 2005, Acta Zool. Sinica, 51: 354–359, suggested that Limnonectes blythii is polyphyletic, with the population in southern Borneo (Kalimantan, Indonesia) more closely related to Limnonectes leporinus, and the remainder of the populations involved complexly with Limnonectes paramacrodon, Limnonectes macrodon, and a group composed of Limnonectes ingeri and Limnonectes malesianus. Grismer, Chan, Grismer, Wood, and Ahmad, 2010, Russ. J. Herpetol., 17: 147–160, reported localities from the Banjaran Bintang Mountains, northwestern peninsular Malaysia. Thong-aree, Chan-ard, Cota, and Makchai, 2011, Thailand Nat. Hist. Mus. J., 5: 99–106, reported the species from Bala Forest, Narathiwat, extreme southern Thailand. Chan-ard, Cota, and Makchai, 2011, Amph. E. Region Thailand: 135, detailed the range in Thailand. See brief account by Grismer, 2012, Field Guide Amph. Rept. Seribuat Arch.: 67–68, for the Seribuat Archipelago, West Malaysia. Nidup, Wangkulangkul, Satasook, Bates, and Juthong, 2013, Proc. World Biodiversity Congr., 2013: 1–13, reported a population on Tarutao Island, Satun Province, Thailand. Shahriza and Ibrahim, 2014, Check List, 10: 253–259, provided a photograph and brief natural history observations for a population in Kedah, West Malaysia. Sumarli, Grismer, Anuar, Muin, and Quah, 2015, Check List, 11(4, Art. 1679): 8, reported specimens from the base of Mount Lawit and Mount Tebu, Terregganu, West Malaysia, and and reported on natural history and life history. Mulcahy, Lee, Miller, Chand, Thura, and Zug, 2018, ZooKeys, 757: 85–162, a genetically-confirmed record from Tanintharyi Division, Myanmar. Do, Ngo, and Nguyen, 2017, Hue Univ. J. Sci: Nat. Sci., 126: 91, noted that earlier records from Phu Yen Province, Vietnam, are not of this species. Haas, Kueh, Joseph, bin Asri, Das, Hagmann, Schwander, and Hertwig, 2018, Evol. Syst., 2: 89–114, noted records of this species from Sabah, Malaysia, that actually apply to Limnonectes leporinus. See comments on morphology in West Malaysia by Chan, Muin, Anuar, Andam, Razak, and Aziz, 2019, Check List, 15: 1055–1069. Niyomwan, Srisom, and Pawangkhanant, 2019, Field Guide Amph. Thailand: 250–251, provided a brief account (photographs, habitat, and range) for Thailand (in Thai). Zug and Mulcahy, 2020 "2019", Amph. Rept. S. Tanintharyi: 36–37, provided a brief account for South Tanintharyi, peninsular Myanmar. Makchai, Chuaynkern, Safoowong, Chuachat, and Cota, 2020, Amph. N. Thailand: 58, provided photographs, a brief account for Thailand, and a range map. Hui, Ngadi, Md-Zain, Md-Zairi, and Abdul-Latiff, 2020, Biodiversitas, 21: 2425–2429, reported the species from Pulau Tinggi, off the southeastern coast of peninsular Malaysia. Poyarkov, Nguyen, Popov, Geissler, Pawangkhanant, Neang, Suwannapoom, and Orlov, 2021, Russ. J. Herpetol., 28 (3A): 23, excluded Laos and Vietnam from the range. Hong, Anuar, Grismer, and Quah, 2021, Check List, 17: 794, reported the species from Batu Hampar Recreational Forest, Kedah, West Malaysia. Zug, 2022, Smithson. Contrib. Zool., 653: 20, briefly discussed identification, habitat, and range in Myanmar, noting literature (above) that provided molecular data showing that this name covers a species complex, which is not even monophyletic. Herlambang, Riyanto, Munir, Hamidy, Kimura, Eto, and Mumpuni, 2022, Treubia, 49: 78, reported the species from Bunguran and Serasan Is., Natuna Is., Indonesia. Figueroa, Low, and Lim, 2023, Zootaxa, 5287: 1–378, provided records, literature, and conservation status for Singapore.      

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