Uperodon montanus (Jerdon, 1853)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Microhylidae > Subfamily: Microhylinae > Genus: Uperodon > Species: Uperodon montanus

Hylaedactylus montanus Jerdon, 1853, J. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 22: 533. Type(s): Not stated; presumably ZSIC; reported as lost by Jerdon, 1870, Proc. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 1870: 67; BMNH 1872.4.29.1795 (now reregistered as 1947.2.11.19 according to museum records) stated to be holotype by Parker, 1934, Monogr. Frogs Fam. Microhylidae: 92,  this redescribed by Garg, Senevirathne, Wijayathilaka, Phuge, Deuti, Manamendra-Arachchi, Meegaskumbura, and Biju, 2018, Zootaxa, 4384: 28. Type locality: "Mountain streams in Wynaad", Kerala, India.

Ramanella montanaParker, 1934, Monogr. Frogs Fam. Microhylidae: 91.

Uperodon montanus — Peloso, Frost, Richards, Rodrigues, Donnellan, Matsui, Raxworthy, Biju, Lemmon, Lemmon, and Wheeler, 2016, Cladistics, 32: 140. 

English Names

Mountain Dot Frog (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 92).

Jerdon's Ramanella (Ananjeva, Borkin, Darevsky, and Orlov, 1988, Dict. Amph. Rept. Five Languages: 98; Das and Dutta, 1998, Hamadryad, 23: 64; Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Gururaja, and Bhatta, 2009, Rec. Zool. Surv. India, Occas. Pap., 302: 58).

Malabar Hill Frog (Chanda, 2002, Handb. Indian Amph.: 44).

Jerdon's Narrow-mouthed Frog (Daniels, 2005, Amph. Peninsular India: 129).

Mountain Globular Frog (Garg, Senevirathne, Wijayathilaka, Phuge, Deuti, Manamendra-Arachchi, Meegaskumbura, and Biju, 2018, Zootaxa, 4384: 28). 

Mountain Balloon Frog (Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Deepak, and Kulkarni, 2023, Fauna India Checklist, vers. 5.0 : 8).

Distribution

Western Ghats of southwestern India from southern Karnataka (Pushpagiri Hills), Kerala, and Tamil Nadu, 800 to 1916 m elevation.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: India

Endemic: India

Comment

Dutta, 1997, Amph. India Sri Lanka: 64, and Biju, 2001, Occas. Publ. Indian Soc. Conserv. Biol., 1: 9, noted the disjunct range of this likely composite species. Chanda, 2002, Handb. Indian Amph.: 44, provided a brief account. Daniels, 2005, Amph. Peninsular India: 129–131, provided an account. Das and Dutta, 2007, Hamadryad, 31: 154–181, noted two larval descriptions in the literature of varying completeness. Kuramoto and Joshy, 2008, J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc., 105: 14–18, described the advertisement call from a population in Karnataka, India, as Ramanella montana. See statement of geographic range, habitat, and conservation status in Stuart, Hoffmann, Chanson, Cox, Berridge, Ramani, and Young, 2008, Threatened Amph. World: 626, who provided a personal communication from S.D. Biju that this taxon is likely a species complex. A very brief characterization, photograph, and dot map for the Western Ghats provided by Subramanian, Dinesh, and Radhakrishnan, 2013, Atlas of Endemic Amph. W. Ghats: 73. Sivaprasad, 2013, Common Amph. Kerala: 94–95, provided a brief account, photograph, and dot map for Kerala, India. See account by Garg, Senevirathne, Wijayathilaka, Phuge, Deuti, Manamendra-Arachchi, Meegaskumbura, and Biju, 2018, Zootaxa, 4384: 28–29, who revised and redelimited the species. Sreekumar and Dinesh, 2020, Rec. Zool. Surv. India, 120: 33–40, noted that records from Maharashtra, India, are in error. Hegde, Kadadevaru, and Dinesh, 2023, J. Threatened Taxa, 15: 22623–22631, described larval morphology, a new northern record from Pushpagiri hill Ranges in Karnataka (12.669° N, 75.717° E) and a new high elevation record of 1916 m at Vaguvarai, Idukki, Kerala, India. 

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