Fejervarya Bolkay, 1915

English Names

Terrestrial Frogs (Li, Zhao, and Dong, 2010, Amph. Rept. Tibet: 47).

Rice Frogs (Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Deepak, and Kulkarni, 2023, Fauna India Checklist, vers. 5.0 : 3). 

Distribution

Eastern India (Orissa) east through Bangladesh, Sinsari (Nepal) and Myanmar to southern China and Indochina and Indochina to the islands of the Sunda Shelf: Japan; reported in Papua New Guinea. 

Comment

Considered provisionally a subgenus of Rana by Dubois, 1984, Alytes, 3: 147; of Limnonectes by Dubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 315. Considered a distinct genus by Iskandar, 1998, Amph. Java Bali: 71, and Dubois and Ohler, 2000, Alytes, 18: 35. Emerson and Berrigan, 1993, Herpetologica, 49: 29, suggested that Limnonectes sensu Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 60, was paraphyletic with respect to Occidozyga. Subsequently, Inger, 1996, Herpetologica, 52: 244, suggested that Fejervarya be excluded from Limnonectes; following this Iskandar, 1998, Amph. Java Bali: 71, placed all members of the former subgenus Fejervarya of Limnonectes as a distinct genus, rendering Limnonectes monophyletic. Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 57, treated this taxon as a member of his subfamily Raninae, Tribe Dicroglossini. In Dicroglossinae, tribe Dicroglossini of Dubois, Ohler, and Biju, 2001, Alytes, 19: 55. 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: 136, placed Fejervarya in Dicroglossidae/Dicroglossinae and regarded Fejervarya as paraphyletic, with at least Fejervarya syhadrensis + Fejervarya kirtisinghei as more closely related to Nannophrys, Euphlyctis, and Hoplobatrachus than to Fejervarya limnocharis and Fejervarya cancrivorus, and with Sphaerotheca also imbedded within nominal Fejervarya. Because their taxonomic sampling did not allow resolution of this problem they left "Fejervarya" nominally intact, although needing work. Kurabayashi, Kuramoto, Joshy, and Sumida, 2005, Zool. Sci., Tokyo, 22: 525–534, discussed phylogeny within the genus. Kuramoto, Joshy, Kurabayashi, and Sumida, 2008 "2007", Curr. Herpetol., Kyoto, 26: 81–105, also discussed phylogenetics within the group and suggested that Fejervarya is paraphyletic with respect to Minervarya, although the evidence in support of this conclusion remains unpublished (see comment under Minervarya). See comment under Fejervarya limnocharis for information on the many unnamed species in this taxon. Kotaki, Kurabayashi, Matsui, Khonsue, Tjong, Tandon, and Sumida, 2008, Zool. Sci., Tokyo, 25: 381–390, provided additional elucidation and discussion of the problem, disagreed in part with the structure of the paraphyly of nominal "Fejervarya", although they did provide evidence for Sphaerotheca being imbedded within "Fejervarya", but did not make the taxonomic change of placing Sphaerotheca in synonymy. Wiens, Sukumaran, Pyron, and Brown, 2009, Evolution, 63: 1217–1231, corroborated the paraphyly of "Fejevarya" (in the sense of including Zakerana) with respect to Sphaerotheca, with one group containing Fejervarya cancrivora, Fejervarya vittigera, Fejervarya orissaensis, and Fejervarya triora, and the other group (more closely related to Sphaerotheca) including Fejervarya brevipalmata, Fejervarya nilagirica, Fejervarya rufescens, Fejervarya kirtisinghei, Fejervarya limnocharis, and Fejervarya syhadrensis (now in Zakerana). Kotaki, Kurabayashi, Matsui, Kuramoto, Tjong, and Sumida, 2010, Zool. Sci., Tokyo, 27: 386–395, also suggested the paraphyly of Fejervarya with respect to Sphaerotheca on the basis of molecular data and reviewed the molecular phylogenetics as related to species boundaries, providing evidence of several unnamed lineages. Howlader, 2011, Bangladesh Wildl. Bull., 5: 1–7, subsequently recognized the second group as Zakerana, to resolve this paraphyly. Pyron and Wiens, 2011, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 61: 543–583, confirmed the monophyly of this taxon as the sister taxon of Sphaerotheca and provided a phylogenetic estimate for exemplar species, although providing a tree that is consistent with the partition of Zakerana from Fejervarya. Islam, Kurose, Khan, Nishizawa, Kuramoto, Alam, Hasan, Kurniawan, Nishioka, and Sumida, 2008, Zool. Sci., Tokyo, 25: 1084–1105, discussed 4 morphotypes within Bangladesh that appear to be species and discussed the difficulty of association with species outside of Bangladesh. Kurniawan, Tjong, Islam, Nishizawa, Belabut, Sen, Wanichanon, Yasir, and Sumida, 2011, Zool. Sci., Tokyo, 28: 12–24, reported on the morphology and interpopulational fertility of Indonesian populations in the Fejervarya cancrivora complex. Hasan, Islam, Khan, Igawa, Alam, Tjong, Kurniawan, Joshy, Yong, Belabut, Kurabayashi, Kuramoto, and Sumida, 2014, Turkish J. Zool., 38: 389–411, provided a ML tree based on 16S mtDNA that suggested that Fejervarya is a paraphyletic accretion, basal to Minervarya, Sphaeerotheca, Hoplobatrachus, and Euphlyctis, but did not recommend any taxonomic remedy pending apply considerably more data to the problem. Dinesh, Vijayakumar, Channakeshavamurthy, Torsekar, Kulkarni, and Shanker, 2015, Zootaxa, 3999: 79–94, suggested on the basis of molecular evidence that Minervarya is a senior name for the Zakerana clade, both of which they treated as a synonym of Fejervarya and which was recovered in their analysis as the sister taxon of Sphaerotheca.  Bopage, Wewelwala, Krvavac, Jovanovic, Safarek, and Pushpamal, 2011, Salamandra, 47: 173–177, reported a population as Fejervarya limnocharis in lowland forest in the Kanneliya Forest of southwestern Sri Lanka, although this is likely referable to another taxon. Huang and Tu, 2016, Genet. Mol. Res., 15 (3, gmr.15038302): 1–9, suggested that Fejervarya is the sister taxon of Euphlyctis + Limnonectes. Garg and Biju, 2017, Zootaxa, 4277: 451–490, distinguished four groups of Fejervarya: 1) Fejervarya nilagirica group (Fejervarya brevipalmata, Fejervarya keralensis, Fejervarya kudremukhensis, Fejervarya mudduraja, Fejervarya murthii, Fejervarya mysorensis, and Fejervarya nilagirica, and, provisionally, Fejervarya parambikulamana and Fejervarya sauriceps); 2) Fejervarya sahyadris group (Fejervarya gomantaki and Fejervarya sahyadris); 3) Fejervarya syhadrensis group (Fejervarya caperata, Fejervarya granosa and Fejervarya syhadrensis, and, provisionally, Fejervarya modesta; 4) Fejervarya rufescens group (Fejervarya cepfi, Fejervarya kadar, Fejervarya manoharani, Fejervarya neilcoxi, and Fejervarya rufescens). Mulcahy, Lee, Miller, Chand, Thura, and Zug, 2018, ZooKeys, 757: 85–162, noted two genetically-confirmed species in Tanintharyi Division, Myanmar, but could not assign a name to them. Sanchez, Biju, Islam, Hasan, Ohler, Vences, and Kurabayashi, 2018, Salamandra, 54: 109–116, discussed the taxonomic problems extending from weak resolution within the Sphaerotheca–Fejervarya group and suggested to resolve the problem by recognizing three genera, all substantially supported, Sphaerotheca and the revised Fejervarya and Minervarya. Köhler, Mogk, Khaing, and Than, 2019, Vert. Zool., Senckenberg, 69: 183–226, reported on the molecular phylogenetics of Fejervarya and Minervarya, confirming the sister-taxon relationship, identifying several misidentifications in the literature, and provided a key to the species of Myanmar. Yodthong, Stuart, and Aowphol, 2019, ZooKeys, 883: 119–153, revised the Fejervarya cancrivora complex. Zug, Mulcahy, Vindum, and Wilkinson, 2018, Alytes, 36: 272, addressed the two cryptic lineages, delimited by Kotaki et al. (2010), found in Tanintharyi Province, peninsular Myanmar.

Contained taxa (14 sp.):

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