Nidirana Dubois, 1992

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Ranidae > Genus: Nidirana
20 species

Nidirana Dubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 324. Type species: Rana psaltes Kuramoto, 1985, by original designation. Originally proposed as a subgenus of Rana. Recognition as a genus by Chen, Murphy, Lathrop, Ngo, Orlov, Ho, and Somorjai, 2005, Herpetol. J., 15: 237. 

Dianrana Fei, Ye, and Jiang, 2010, Herpetol. Sinica, 12: 21. Type species: Rana pleuraden Boulenger, 1904. See comment under Ranidae record.

English Names

Music Frogs (Lyu, Zeng, Wang, Lin, Liu, and Wang, 2017, Amphibia-Reptilia, 38: 494). 

Distribution

Japan, Taiwan, southern China, northern Thailand, northern Vietnam, and intervening Laos.

Comment

Removed from the synonym of Babina (although retained as its sister taxon) on the basis of molecular phylogenetics by Lyu, Zeng, Wang, Lin, Liu, and Wang, 2017, Amphibia-Reptilia, 38: 483, where it had been placed by Frost, Grant, Faivovich, Bain, Haas, Haddad, de Sá, Channing, Wilkinson, Donnellan, Raxworthy, Campbell, Blotto, Moler, Drewes, Nussbaum, Lynch, Green, and Wheeler, 2006, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 297: 248. Chou, 1999, Herpetologica, 55: 389-400, provided a key to the species of the former subgenus Nidirana. Several authors (e.g., Fei, Hu, Ye, and Huang, 2009, Fauna Sinica, Amph. 3:) have retained Nidirana within Hylarana without having addressed the phylogenetic placement of Nidirana with respect to Babina.Without having established its monophyly, Chuaynkern, Ohler, Inthara, Duengkae, Makchai, and Salangsingha, 2010, Raffles Bull. Zool., 58: 291-310. recognized Nidirana as a separate taxon from Babina, regarded both as subgenera of Rana and without addressing the effect of this on larger issues of ranid taxonomy, and recognized three species groups within their NidiranaLyu, Zeng, Wang, Lin, Liu, and Wang, 2017, Amphibia-Reptilia, 38: 483–502, reported on molecular phylogenetics, placing Babina (sensu stricto) as the sister taxon of Nidirana and together the sister taxon of Odorrana. Chen, Jiang, Peng, Li, Su, Yu, and Cheng, 2022, ZooKeys, 1135: 119–137, reported on the comparative phylogenetics within Nidirana. Jiang, Song, Liu, Zhang, Liu, Liu, Jia, and Chen, 2023, Asian Herpetol. Res., 14: 207, provided an mtDNA tree that suggested that Nidirana (as part of Babina) is the sister taxon of Hylarana (as Sylvirana) and together the sister of Babina sensu stricto. 

Contained taxa (20 sp.):

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