Spinular night frog

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Spinular night frog
Not evaluated (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Amphibia
Order: Anura
Family: Nyctibatrachidae
Genus: Nyctibatrachus
Species:
N. acanthodermis
Binomial name
Nyctibatrachus acanthodermis
Biju, Van Bocxlaer, Mahony, Dinesh, Radhakrishnan, Zachariah, Giri, and Bossuyt, 2011

The spinular night frog (Nyctibatrachus acanthodermis), also known as the spinular wrinkled frog, is a species of frog in the family

IUCN
.

Taxonomy

Nyctibatrachus acanthodermis was described in 2011, along with 11 other species in its genus, by the

Kerala, India, in 2010. The species's name is from the Greek words acanthos, meaning spine, and dermis, meaning skin, referring to its characteristic spiny skin.[2] It is also called the spinular wrinkled frog.[1]

There are no

N. sylvaticus. The clade of these five species is sister to N. radcliffei, and these six species are sister to N. indraneili.[5][6] A study from 2014 found a slightly different relationship, with major being sister to gavi, and acanthodermis being sister to that clade.[7] The following cladogram shows relationships within this clade based on a phylogeny by the 2017 study by Sonali Garg and colleagues:[5]

N. indraneili

N. radcliffei

N. grandis

N. sylvaticus

N. acanthodermis

N. gavi

N. major

Description

N. acanthodermis is a large species of night frog, with an adult male snout–vent length of 52.9–66.2 mm (2.08–2.61 in). The head is wider than it is long, and the snout is ovoid and longer than the diameter of the eye. The back is brownish-grey. The upperside of the limbs is dark brown, with dark brown lines across the limbs and fingers. The underside is uniformly grey, darker on the throat, and the thigh, feet, and webbing are dark grey. When preserved in 70% ethanol, the upperside is black and the underside is greyish-brown. The thigh is darker than the rest of the underside, and the chest, hand, feet and webbing are dark grey. Males and females are broadly similar in their external appearance, but can be distinguished by the presence of nuptial pads and femoral glands (bulbous glands near the inner thigh) in males.[2]

The species may be confused with the congeneric N. gavi, N. grandis,[2] and N. radcliffei.[5] It can be distinguished from these species by a combination of its large size; robust body; medium webbing on the feet; noticeable wrinkling on the skin of the upperside, with conspicuous projections along the spine; a prominent Y-shaped ridge from the upper lip to the nostrils; the presence of the dorso-terminal groove (groove on the upper side of the tip of the digit) on the fourth toe; the absence of the dorso-terminal groove on the third finger; and the lower leg being longer than the foot and nearly equal in length to the thigh.[2]

Distribution, ecology, and conservation

N. acanthodermis is

endemic to the Western Ghats of India, where it is known from Nelliampathi in Palakkad, Kerala, and from the Valparai Plateau in Coimbatore district, Tamil Nadu. The specimens used to describe the species were collected from under rocks in streams in a region of secondary forest.[2] Frogs from Tamil Nadu inhabited pools in swiftly flowing streams.[8] Females lay large pigmented eggs with a diameter of 2.2–2.8 mm (0.087–0.110 in).[2] The species has not yet been assessed by the IUCN.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c Dinesh, K. P.; Radhakrishnan, C.; Deepak, P.; Kulkarni, N. U. (2023). A Checklist of Indian Amphibians with common names for the country and their IUCN Conservation Status (PDF) (Report) (5th ed.). Zoological Survey of India. p. 9.
  2. ^
    ISSN 1175-5334
    .
  3. doi:10.5531/db.vz.0001
    .
  4. doi:10.5531/db.vz.0001
    .
  5. ^
    PMID 28243532
    .
  6. ISSN 0974-7907
    .
  7. PMID 24870664
    .
  8. ^ Harikrishnan, S.; Mudappa, D.; Raman, T. (2018). "Herpetofaunal survey in rainforest remnants of the Western Ghats, India". The Herpetological Bulletin. 146: 13, 15.
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