Search tool	Example of search string in box	What that means to the database
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	Hyl*	Will find all uses of "Hyl . . ." anywhere in a record: e.g., Hylarana, Hyla, Hylidae, Hylinae, Hylaedactyla.
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	*Hyla	Will find all uses of ". . . hyla" anywhere in a record: e.g., Hyla, Hylidae, Plectrohyla, Ptychadena hylaea, Adenomera hylaedactyla
	Hyla	Will find all records that contain stand-alone uses of Hyla: e.g., Hyla, Hyla arenicolor
Strings of words without quotation marks	Lithobates pipiens	Interprets this as "Lithobates OR pipiens" so will find the union of all records that contain either "Lithobates" or "pipiens": e.g., Lithobates omiltemanus, Hylorana pipiens
Strings of word with quotation marks	"Lithobates pipiens"	Interprets this as "Lithobates AND pipiens" so will return all records that have the character string "Lithobates pipiens" anywhere within a record: e.g., all members of the Lithobates pipiens complex.
AND statement. Means that the results of the search must include both words held together by an AND	Lithobates AND pipiens	Same as "Lithobates pipiens"
OR statement. Means that the results of the search will all records that have either of the terms held together by an OR	Lithobates OR "Costa Rica"	Recovers all records that contain the word "Lithobates" or "Costa Rica": 402 records inasmuch as this will include all records for the entire amphibian fauna of Costa Rica
Combining Boolean operators within the Basic Search box (AND, OR, NOT, quotation marks)	Lithobates AND "Costa Rica" NOT forreri	Recovers only records that contain the word Lithobates AND "Costa Rica", but excludes any record that contains the word "forreri" in any part of the record: 9 records
Printable HELP file

Search tool	Example of search string in box	What that means to the database
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	Hyl*	Will find all uses of "Hyl . . ." anywhere in a record: e.g., Hylarana, Hyla, Hylidae, Hylinae, Hylaedactyla.
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	*Hyla	Will find all uses of ". . . hyla" anywhere in a record: e.g., Hyla, Hylidae, Plectrohyla, Ptychadena hylaea, Adenomera hylaedactyla
Single word	Hyla	Will find all records that contain stand-alone uses of Hyla: e.g., Hyla, Hyla arenicolor
Strings of words without quotation marks	Lithobates pipiens	Interprets this as "Lithobates OR pipiens" so will find the union of all records that contain either "Lithobates" or "pipiens": e.g., Lithobates omiltemanus, Hylorana pipiens
Strings of word with quotation marks	"Lithobates pipiens"	Interprets this as "Lithobates AND pipiens" so will return all records that have the character string "Lithobates pipiens" anywhere within a record: e.g., all members of the Lithobates pipiens complex.
AND statement. Means that the results of the search must include both words held together by an AND	Lithobates AND pipiens	Same as "Lithobates pipiens"
OR statement. Means that the results of the search will all records that have either of the terms held together by an OR	Lithobates OR "Costa Rica"	Recovers all records that contain the word "Lithobates" or "Costa Rica": 402 records inasmuch as this will include all records for the entire amphibian fauna of Costa Rica
Combining Boolean operators within the Basic Search box (AND, OR, NOT, quotation marks)	Lithobates AND "Costa Rica" NOT forreri	Recovers only records that contain the word Lithobates AND "Costa Rica", but excludes any record that contains the word "forreri" in any part of the record: 9 records
Printable HELP file

Sphaerotheca pluvialis (Jerdon, 1853)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Dicroglossidae > Subfamily: Dicroglossinae > Genus: Sphaerotheca > Species: Sphaerotheca pluvialis

Pyxicephalus pluvialis Jerdon, 1853, J. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 22: 534. Types: Not stated, but presumably ZSIC; reported as lost by Jerdon, 1870, Proc. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 1870: 67. ZSI A9074 designated neotype by Dahanukar, Sulakhe, and Padhye, 2017, J. Threatened Taxa, 9: 10272. Type locality: "Carnatic", South India. Neotype from "India: Tamil Nadu: Thiruadisoolam near Pattaravakkam (12.696°N, 80.030°E)".

Pyxicephalus fodiens Jerdon, 1853, J. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 22: 534. Types: Not stated, but presumably ZSIC; reported as lost by Jerdon, 1870, Proc. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 1870: 67. ZSI A9074 designated neotype by Dahanukar, Sulakhe, and Padhye, 2017, J. Threatened Taxa, 9: 10272. Type locality: "Carnatic [South India] . . . . also Ceylon". Neotype from "India: Tamil Nadu: Thiruadisoolam near Pattaravakkam (12.696°N, 80.030°E)". Synonymy with Sphaerotheca breviceps by Anderson, 1871, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1871: 200. Provisional synonymy with Sphaerotheca breviceps by Dubois, 1983, Alytes, 2: 164. Regarded as a synonym of one of the species or incertae sedis within Sphaerotheca by Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 57. Objective synonym of Pyxicephalus pluvialis due to the shared neotype.

Sphaerotheca strigata Günther, 1859 "1858", Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus.: 20. Syntypes: BMNH 1947.2.28.55-62; BMNH 1947.2.28.55 designated lectotype by Dubois, 1983, Alytes, 2: 165. Type locality: "Madras", Tamil Nadu, India. Synonymy with Sphaerotheca breviceps by Günther, 1864, Rept. Brit. India: 411. Regarded as a synonym of one of the species or incertae sedis within Sphaerotheca by Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 57. Placed as a synonym of Sphaerotheca pluvials by Dahanukar, Sulakhe, and Padhye, 2017, J. Threatened Taxa, 9: 10272.

Tomopterna strigata — Günther, 1860, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1860: 165.

Pyxicephalus (Tomopterna) fodiens — Peters, 1860, Monatsber. Preuss. Akad. Wiss. Berlin, 1860: 186. Placed in synonymy of Rana tigerina (sensu lato) by Boulenger, 1882, Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus., Ed. 2: 26, possibly implying that Peters' use of the name may have been based on misidentified material.

Tomopterna (Sphaerotheca) pluvialis — Dubois, 2000, in Miehe and Zhang (eds.), Environm. Changes in High Asia: 334.

Sphaerotheca pluvialis — Marmayou, Dubois, Ohler, Pasquet, and Tillier, 2000, C. R. Acad. Sci., Ser. 3, Paris, 323: 293. Resurrection without discussion. Based on a species other than Sphaerotheca pluvialis according to Dahanukar, Sulakhe, and Padhye, 2017, J. Threatened Taxa, 9: 10276.

English Names

Jerdon's Burrowing Frog (Dahanukar, Sulakhe, and Padhye, 2017, J. Threatened Taxa, 9: 10272).

Distribution

South India (eastern Maharashtra to eastern Tamil Nadu) and Sri Lanka.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: India, Sri Lanka

Comment

Removed from the synonymy of Sphaerotheca breviceps by Dahanukar, Sulakhe, and Padhye, 2017, J. Threatened Taxa, 9: 10272, who revised the complex (and placed this species in the Sphaerotheca dobsoni group), where it had been placed by Günther, 1864, Rept. Brit. India: 411; Jerdon, 1870, Proc. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 1870: 85; Boulenger, 1890, Fauna Brit. India, Rept. Batr.: 451; Boulenger, 1920, Rec. Indian Mus., 20: 103. This synonymy considered provisional by Dubois, 1983, Alytes, 2: 164. Regarded as a synonym of one of the species or incertae sedis within Sphaerotheca by Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 57. Prasad, Dinesh, Das, Swamy, Shinde, and Vishnu, 2019, Rec. Zool. Surv. India, 119: 207, commented on taxonomic status of Indian populations, implying that the distinctiveness of Sphaerotheca pluvialis and Sphaerotheca rolandae, remains arguable. See Dandekar, Sulakhe, and Padhye, 2020, Reptiles & Amphibians, 27: 390–396, for recognition and for a dot map for India. Jablonski, Masroor, and Hofmann, 2021, Diversity, 13 (216): 4, found Sphaerotheca pluvialis to be the sister taxon of an unnamed species from Myanmar (identified by various authors as Sphaerotheca pluvialis or Sphaerotheca breviceps) and provided genetically-confirmed records from Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, India, and Sri Lanka.

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For access to available specimen data for this species, from over 350 scientific collections, go to Vertnet.