Minervarya Dubois, Ohler, and Biju, 2001

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Dicroglossidae > Subfamily: Dicroglossinae > Genus: Minervarya
31 species

Minervarya Dubois, Ohler, and Biju, 2001, Alytes, 19: 58. Type species: Minervarya sahyadris Dubois, Ohler, and Biju, by original designation. 

Zakerana Howlader, 2011, Bangladesh Wildl. Bull., 5: 1. Type species: Rana limnocharis syhadrensis Annandale, 1919, by original designation. Synonymy with Fejervarya by Dinesh, Vijayakumar, Channakeshavamurthy, Torsekar, Kulkarni, and Shanker, 2015, Zootaxa, 3999: 79; with Minervarya by Sanchez, Biju, Islam, Hasan, Ohler, Vences, and Kurabayashi, 2018, Salamandra, 54: 115. 

English Names

Cricket Frogs (Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Deepak, and Kulkarni, 2023, Fauna India Checklist, vers. 5.0 : 4). 

Distribution

Eastern India and the Andaman Islands; Nepal; Bangladesh, and Chiang Mai, Thailand; presumably to be found in intervening Myanmar. 

Comment

Removed from the synonymy of Fejervarya by Sanchez, Biju, Islam, Hasan, Ohler, Vences, and Kurabayashi, 2018, Salamandra, 54: 109–116, where it had been placed by Dinesh, Vijayakumar, Channakeshavamurthy, Torsekar, Kulkarni, and Shanker, 2015, Zootaxa, 3999: 79. See Fejervarya account for access to relevant taxonomic and faunal liturature. Köhler, Mogk, Khaing, and Than, 2019, Vert. Zool., Senckenberg, 69: 183–226, reported on the molecular phylogenetics of Fejervarya and Minervarya, confirming the sister-taxon relationship, identifying several misidentifications in the literature, and provided a key to the species of Myanmar. Niyomwan, Srisom, and Pawangkhanant, 2019, Field Guide Amph. Thailand: 286–287, provided a brief account (description, photographs, habitat, and range) for Thailand (in Thai). Hegde, Dinesh, and Kadadevaru, 2020, Zootaxa, 4838: 1–20, provisionally placed Minervarya into the synonymy of Fejervarya, without comment on the status of Sphaerotheca, which currently is understood to be the sister taxon of Fejervarya to the exclusion of Minervarya. So, given that the provisional change results in a paraphyletic genus, I (DRF) resist the change pending better resolution of the overall group. Garg and Biju, 2021, Asian Herpetol. Res., 12: 345–370, revised the genus, providing a molecular tree and recognized several species groups: (1) Minervarya sahyadris group: Minervarya gomantaki, Minervarya krishnan, and Minervarya sahyadris; (2) Minervarya syhadrensis group: Minervarya syhadrensis, Minervarya nepalensis., and Minervarya pentali; (3) Minervarya agricola group: Minervarya agricola, Minervarya asmati, Minervarya chiangmaiensis, and Minervarya teraiensis; (4) Minervarya mysorensis group: Minervarya brevipalmata, Minervarya goemchi, and Minervarya mysorensis; (5) Minervarya rufescens group: Minervarya cepfi, Minervarya kadar, Minervarya manoharani, Minervarya neilcoxi, and Minervarya rufescens; (6) Minervarya andamanensis group: Minervarya andamanensis and Minervarya muangkanensis; (7) Minervarya greenii group: Minervarya greenii and Minervarya kirtisinghei; (8) Minervarya nilagirica group: Minervarya kalinga, Minervarya keralensis, and Minervarya nilagirica.

Contained taxa (31 sp.):

External links:

Please note: these links will take you to external websites not affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History. We are not responsible for their content.