Nyctibatrachus major Boulenger, 1882

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Nyctibatrachidae > Subfamily: Nyctibatrachinae > Genus: Nyctibatrachus > Species: Nyctibatrachus major

Nyctibatrachus major Boulenger, 1882, Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus., Ed. 2: 114. Syntypes: BMNH 1947.2.5.79–88 (formerly 1872.4.17.117–119, 1874.4.29.69–621, 874.4.29.522–524, 1874.4.29.1425–142, and 1882.2.10.34–37) according to museum records, MCZ 15405 (on exchange from BMNH, according to Barbour and Loveridge, 1946, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., 96: 160). BMNH 1947.2.5.76 designated lectotype by Biju, Van Bocxlaer, Mahony, Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Zachariah, Giri, and Bossuyt, 2011, Zootaxa, 3029: 49. Type localities: "Malabar" and "Wynaad", South India; restricted to "Malabar" by the lectotype designation.

Rana travancorica Annandale, 1910, Rec. Indian Mus., 5: 191. Syntypes: ZSIC or Trivandrum Mus., India. Type localities: "Eathancaud and at Anachardie in the Ariankavu Range near Shencottah on the Madras frontier", Travancore, India. Synonymy by Pillai, 1978, Bull. Zool. Surv. India, 1: 135–140. This synonymy disputed by Dutta, 1997, Amph. India Sri Lanka: 165, on the basis that Pillai did not examine Annandale's specimens. Synonymy confirmed by Biju, Van Bocxlaer, Mahony, Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Zachariah, Giri, and Bossuyt, 2011, Zootaxa, 3029: 49.

English Names

Malabar Night Frog (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 102; Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Gururaja, and Bhatta, 2009, Rec. Zool. Surv. India, Occas. Pap., 302: 64; Biju, Van Bocxlaer, Mahony, Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Zachariah, Giri, and Bossuyt, 2011, Zootaxa, 3029: 49).

Large Wrinkled Frog (Das and Dutta, 1998, Hamadryad, 23: 65; Daniels, 2005, Amph. Peninsular India: 226).

Boulenger's Narrow-eyed Frog (Chanda, 2002, Handb. Indian Amph.: 69–70).

Travancore Wrinkled Frog (Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Deepak, and Kulkarni, 2023, Fauna India Checklist, vers. 5.0 : 9).

Distribution

Southern part of the Western Ghats region in Tamil Nadu, and Kerala, India, elevations of 110–920 m.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: India

Endemic: India

Comment

See Pillai, 1978, Bull. Zool. Surv. India, 1: 135–140, for discussion, redescription, and characterization. Inger, Shaffer, Koshy, and Bakde, 1984, J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc., 81: 417–418, provided a brief account. Biju, 2001, Occas. Publ. Indian Soc. Conserv. Biol., 1: 16, implied that considerable intraspecific variation can be seen in this taxon. Kuramoto and Joshy, 2001, Curr. Herpetol., Kyoto, 20: 85–95, reported on the advertisement call. Chanda, 2002, Handb. Indian Amph.: 69–70, provided a brief account. Dutta, 1997, Amph. India Sri Lanka: 147, provided range and partial taxonomic bibliography. Daniels, 2005, Amph. Peninsular India: 226–228, provided an account. See photograph, map, description of geographic range and habitat, and conservation status in Stuart, Hoffmann, Chanson, Cox, Berridge, Ramani, and Young, 2008, Threatened Amph. World: 488. Das and Dutta, 2007, Hamadryad, 31: 154–181, noted a few larval descriptions in the literature of varying completeness. Biju, Van Bocxlaer, Mahony, Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Zachariah, Giri, and Bossuyt, 2011, Zootaxa, 3029: 49–52, provided an account and redelimited the species diagnosis and its range. A very brief characterization, photograph, and dot map provided by Subramanian, Dinesh, and Radhakrishnan, 2013, Atlas of Endemic Amph. W. Ghats: 92. Sreekumar and Dinesh, 2020, Rec. Zool. Surv. India, 120: 33–40, noted that records from Maharashtra, India, are in error. 

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