Xenophrys megacephala (Mahony, Sengupta, Kamei, and Biju, 2011)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Megophryidae > Subfamily: Megophryinae > Genus: Xenophrys > Species: Xenophrys megacephala

Megophrys megacephala Mahony, Sengupta, Kamei, and Biju, 2011, Zootaxa, 3059: 37. Holotype: ZSI A 11213, by original designation. Type locality: "Basistha Road, approximately 5 km south of Basistha temple (26° 03′ 59 N, 91°47′ 32 E, 145 m a.s.l.), East Khasi Hills, northern Meghalaya, India"; the type locality noted by  Kharkongor, Saikia, and Deb, 2018, Rec. Zool. Surv. India, 118: 45, to be in "Ri Bhoi District, northern Meghalaya, along the border of Assam, and not East Khasi Hills". 

Xenophrys megacephalaFrost, 2013, Amph. Spec. World, Vers. 5.6. See comment under generic record; Chen, Zhou, Poyarkov, Stuart, Brown, Lathrop, Wang, Yuan, Jiang, Hou, Chen, Suwannapoom, Nguyen, Duong, Papenfuss, Murphy, Zhang, and Che, 2017, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 106: 41; Lyu, Zeng, Wang, Liu, Huang, Li, and Wang, 2021, Zootaxa, 4927: 39.

Megophrys (Xenophrys) megacephala — Mahony, Foley, Biju, and Teeling, 2017, Mol. Biol. Evol., 34: 756. 

English Names

Big Headed Horned Frog (original publication; Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Deepak, and Kulkarni, 2023, Fauna India Checklist, vers. 5.0 : 6).

Distribution

Known from two disjunct populations; the eastern population is found from the Ri Bhoi district of Meghalaya state and the adjoining southern Kamrup district of Assam state (Garbhanga Reserve Forest and Mayeng Hill Reserve Forest ) between 90 and 145 m elevation; the western population is found  from Tura municipality in the West Garo Hills district of Meghalaya state at 675 m and possibly as high as 875 m elevation, India.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: India

Endemic: India

Comment

 Kharkongor, Saikia, and Deb, 2018, Rec. Zool. Surv. India, 118: 45, briefly summarized the range in India. See account by Mahony, Kamei, Teeling, and Biju, 2020, J. Nat. Hist., London, 54: 154–157, who corrected much of the literature and the range, noted that it was widely previously confused with Megophrys parva, and placed it in their Megophrys (Xenophrys) megacephala species group. In the Xenophrys megacephala group of Lyu, Zeng, Wang, Liu, Huang, Li, and Wang, 2021, Zootaxa, 4927: 9–40, and Lyu, Qi, Wang, Zhang, Zhao, Zeng, Wan, Yang, Mo, and Wang, 2023, Zool. Res., Kunming, 44: 383.

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