Rhacophorus

Genus of amphibians

Rhacophorus

Malabar gliding frog
(Rhacophorus malabaricus)
Note the elongated toes with prominent webbing.
Scientific classification
Kingdom:  | Animalia
Phylum:  | Chordata
Class:  | Amphibia
Order:  | Anura
Family:  | Rhacophoridae
Subfamily:  | Rhacophorinae
Genus:  | Rhacophorus
Kuhl & Van Hasselt, 1822
Species

See text

Synonyms

* Rhacoforus Palacky, 1898 (lapsus)
* Racophorus Schlegel, 1826 (lapsus)

Rhacophorus is a genus of frogs in the shrub frog family (Rhacophoridae) and the related Hylidae make up the true tree frogs. They are found in India, Japan, China, and Southeast Asia. Over 40 species are currently recognised.[1]

These frogs have long toes with strong webbing between them, enabling the animals to slow their fall to a glide, a form of arboreal locomotion known as parachuting.[2] They are, therefore, among the anurans commonly known as "flying frogs".

The present genus is closely related to Polypedates, which in former times was often included in Rhacophorus. Even today, it is not fully resolved in which of these genera "P." feae and the Chinese flying frog ("R." dennysi) properly belong, and the supposedly new species "P. pingbianensis" has turned out to be the same as R. duboisi.

Foam nest of Rhacophorus arboreus

## Reproduction[edit]

These frogs lay their eggs in aerial foam nests; upon hatching, tadpoles drop to the water under the nest and complete their development there.[3][4]Some species like Rhacophorus kio will wrap this and cover this foam nest with leaves. [5]

## Species[edit]

These species are recognised in the genus Rhacophorus:[1][6][7]

* Rhacophorus annamensis Smith, 1924 – Annam flying frog
* Rhacophorus baluensis Inger, 1954
* Rhacophorus barisani Harvey, Pemberton, and Smith, 2002
* Rhacophorus bengkuluensis Streicher, Hamidy, Harvey, Anders, Shaney, Kurniawan, and Smith, 2014
* Rhacophorus bifasciatus Van Kampen, 1923
* Rhacophorus bipunctatus Ahl, 1927 (including R. htunwini)
* Rhacophorus borneensis Matsui, Shimada, and Sudin, 2013
* Rhacophorus calcadensis Ahl, 1927 – Kalakad gliding frog
* Rhacophorus calcaneus Smith, 1924
* Rhacophorus catamitus Harvey, Pemberton, and Smith, 2002
* Rhacophorus edentulus Müller, 1894
* Rhacophorus exechopygus Inger, Orlov, and Darevsky, 1999
* Rhacophorus georgii Roux, 1904
* Rhacophorus helenae Rowley, Tran, Hoang & Le, 2012[6] – Helen's tree frog
* Rhacophorus hoabinhensis Nguyen, Pham, Nguyen, Ninh, and Ziegler, 2017
* Rhacophorus hoanglienensis Orlov, Lathrop, Murphy, and Ho, 2001
* Rhacophorus indonesiensis Hamidy & Kurniati, 2015
* Rhacophorus kio Ohler & Delorme, 2005 – black-webbed treefrog
* Rhacophorus laoshan Mo, Jiang, Xie, and Ohler, 2008
* Rhacophorus larissae Ostroshabov, Orlov, and Nguyen, 2013
* Rhacophorus lateralis Boulenger, 1883
* Rhacophorus malabaricus Jerdon, 1870 – Malabar gliding frog
* Rhacophorus margaritifer (Schlegel, 1837)
* Rhacophorus marmoridorsum Orlov, 2008
* Rhacophorus modestus Boulenger, 1920
* Rhacophorus monticola Boulenger, 1896
* Rhacophorus nigropalmatus Boulenger, 1895 – Wallace's flying frog
* Rhacophorus norhayatii Chan and Grismer, 2010
* Rhacophorus orlovi Ziegler and Köhler, 2001
* Rhacophorus pardalis Günther, 1858 – harlequin tree frog
* Rhacophorus poecilonotus Boulenger, 1920
* Rhacophorus pseudomalabaricus Vasudevan and Dutta, 2000
* Rhacophorus reinwardtii (Schlegel, 1840) – black-webbed tree frog, green flying frog, Reinwardt's tree frog
* Rhacophorus rhodopus Liu and Hu, 1960 (including R. namdaphaensis, often included in R. bipunctatus)
* Rhacophorus robertingeri Orlov, Poyarkov, Vassilieva, Ananjeva, Nguyen, Sang, and Geissler, 2012
* Rhacophorus spelaeus Orlov, Gnophanxay, Phimminith, and Phomphoumy, 2010
* Rhacophorus subansiriensis Mathew and Sen, 2009
* Rhacophorus translineatus Wu, 1977
* Rhacophorus tuberculatus (Anderson, 1871)
* Rhacophorus turpes Smith, 1940
* Rhacophorus vampyrus Rowley, Le, Thi, Stuart, and Hoang, 2010 – vampire tree frog
* Rhacophorus vanbanicus Kropachev, Orlov, Ninh, and Nguyen, 2019
* Rhacophorus verrucopus Huang, 1983
* Rhacophorus viridimaculatus Ostroshabov, Orlov, and Nguyen, 2013

## Phylogeny[edit]

The following is a partial phylogeny of Rhacophorus from Pyron & Wiens (2011).[8] Only nine species are included. Rhacophorus is a sister group of Polypedates.[8]

Rhacophorus |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |

Rhacophorus annamensis

|

Rhacophorus orlovi

|  |  |

Rhacophorus malabaricus

|

Rhacophorus calcaneus

|  |  |

Rhacophorus rhodopus

|

|  |  |

Rhacophorus bipunctatus

|

|  |  |

Rhacophorus kio

|

|  |  |

Rhacophorus reinwardtii

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Rhacophorus lateralis

## References[edit]

1. ^ a b Frost, Darrel R. (2013). "Rhacophorus". Amphibian Species of the World 5.6, an Online Reference. American Museum of Natural History. Retrieved 15 April 2013.
2. ^ John R. Hutchinson. "Gliding and Parachuting". www.ucmp.berkeley.edu. Regents of the University of California.
3. ^ Grosjean, S.; Delorme, M.; Dubois, A.; Ohler, A. (2008). "Evolution of reproduction in the Rhacophoridae (Amphibia, Anura)". Journal of Zoological Systematics and Evolutionary Research. 46 (2): 169. doi:10.1111/j.1439-0469.2007.00451.x.
4. ^ Li, Jiatang; Dingqi Rao; Robert W. Murphy; Yaping Zhang (2011). "The systematic status of rhacophorid frogs" (PDF). Asian Herpetological Research. 2: 1–11. doi:10.3724/SP.J.1245.2011.00001.
5. ^ Poo, Sinland (2016). "RHACOPHORUS KIO. OVIPOSITION AND NEST CONSTRUCTION". Herpetological Review. 47 (1): 119–120.
6. ^ a b Rowley, J. J. L.; Tran, D. T. A.; Hoang, H. D.; Le, D. T. T. (2012). "A new species of large flying frog (Rhacophoridae: Rhacophorus) from lowland forests in southern Vietnam". Journal of Herpetology. 46 (4): 480–487. doi:10.1670/11-261. S2CID 86411409.
7. ^ Kropachev, Ivan I.; Orlov, Nikolai L.; Ninh, Hoa Thi; Nguyen, Tao Thien (2019-12-15). "A New Species of Rhacophorus Genus (Amphibia: Anura: Rhacophoridae: Rhacophorinae) from Van Ban District, Lao Cai Province, Northern Vietnam". Russian Journal of Herpetology. 26 (6): 325–334. doi:10.30906/1026-2296-2019-26-6-325-334. ISSN 1026-2296. S2CID 216378292.
8. ^ a b R. Alexander Pyron; John J. Wiens (2011). "A large-scale phylogeny of Amphibia including over 2800 species, and a revised classification of extant frogs, salamanders, and caecilians". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 61 (2): 543–583. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2011.06.012. PMID 21723399.

## External links[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Rhacophorus.

* Amphibian and Reptiles of Peninsular Malaysia - Family Rhacophoridae

Taxon identifiers|

* Wikidata: Q943540
* Wikispecies: Rhacophorus
* ASW: Rhacophorus
* BOLD: 25124
* CoL: 787M
* Fossilworks: 37477
* GBIF: 1016088
* iNaturalist: 319401
* ITIS: 208083
* NCBI: 27578
* uBio: 6832011
* WoRMS: 1421921

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