Rhacophorid
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The Rhacophoridae are a
family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...
of
frog A frog is any member of a diverse and largely semiaquatic group of short-bodied, tailless amphibian vertebrates composing the order (biology), order Anura (coming from the Ancient Greek , literally 'without tail'). Frog species with rough ski ...
s in tropical
sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lie south of the Sahara. These include Central Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa, and West Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the list of sovereign states and ...
,
South India South India, also known as Southern India or Peninsular India, is the southern part of the Deccan Peninsula in India encompassing the states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana as well as the union territories of ...
and
Sri Lanka Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...
,
Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
, northeastern India to eastern
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
and
Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...
, south through the
Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...
and
Greater Sundas The Greater Sunda Islands (Indonesian language, Indonesian and Malay language, Malay: ''Kepulauan Sunda Besar'') are four tropical islands situated within the Indonesian Archipelago, in the Pacific Ocean. The islands, Borneo, Java, Sulawesi and S ...
, and
Sulawesi Sulawesi ( ), also known as Celebes ( ), is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the List of islands by area, world's 11th-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Min ...
. They are commonly known as shrub frogs, or more ambiguously as " moss frogs" or " bush frogs". Some Rhacophoridae are called "
tree frog A tree frog (or treefrog) is any species of frog that spends a major portion of its lifespan in trees, known as an arboreal state. Several lineages of frogs among the Neobatrachia suborder have given rise to treefrogs, although they are not clos ...
s". Among the most spectacular members of this family are numerous "
flying frog A flying frog (also called a gliding frog) is a frog that has the ability to achieve gliding flight. This means it can descend at an angle less than 45° relative to the horizontal. Other nonflying arboreal frogs can also descend, but only at an ...
s". Although a few groups are primarily
terrestrial Terrestrial refers to things related to land or the planet Earth, as opposed to extraterrestrial. Terrestrial may also refer to: * Terrestrial animal, an animal that lives on land opposed to living in water, or sometimes an animal that lives on o ...
, rhacophorids are predominantly
arboreal Arboreal locomotion is the locomotion of animals in trees. In habitats in which trees are present, animals have evolved to move in them. Some animals may scale trees only occasionally (scansorial), but others are exclusively arboreal. The hab ...
treefrogs. Mating frogs, while in
amplexus Amplexus (Latin "embrace") is a type of Mating, mating behavior exhibited by some External fertilization, externally fertilizing species (chiefly amphibians, Amphipoda, amphipods, and horseshoe crabs) in which a male grasps a female with his fro ...
, hold on to a branch, and beat their legs to form a foam. The eggs are laid in the foam and covered with seminal fluid before the foam hardens into a protective casing. In certain species, this process occurs collectively. The foam is deposited above a water source, ensuring that the tadpoles drop into the water upon hatching. The species within this family vary in size from . Like other arboreal frogs, they have toe discs, and those of the genus ''
Chiromantis ''Chiromantis'' is a genus of frogs in the family Rhacophoridae, commonly known as foam-nest frogs or foam-nest tree frogs. It contains species from the Sub-Saharan African tropics. Following the molecular genetic study by Chen and colleagues (2 ...
'' have two opposable fingers on each hand. This family also contains the Old World
flying frog A flying frog (also called a gliding frog) is a frog that has the ability to achieve gliding flight. This means it can descend at an angle less than 45° relative to the horizontal. Other nonflying arboreal frogs can also descend, but only at an ...
s, including Wallace's flying frog (''
Rhacophorus nigropalmatus Wallace's flying frog (''Rhacophorus nigropalmatus''), also known as the gliding frog or the Abah River flying frog, is a moss frog found at least from the Malay Peninsula into western Indonesia and southern Thailand, and is present in Borneo a ...
''). These frogs have extensive webbing between their fore and hind limbs, allowing them to glide through the air.


Taxonomy


Evolution

The Rhacophoridae are the
sister group In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree. Definition The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram: Taxon A and ...
to the
Mantellidae The Mantellidae are an amphibian family (biology), family of the order (biology), order Frog, Anura (frogs and toads), and are Endemism, endemic to the Indian Ocean islands of Madagascar and Mayotte. At first glance, the diminutive, brightly-col ...
, a family of frogs restricted to
Madagascar Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country that includes the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, it is the world's List of islands by area, f ...
. Both families are thought to have diverged during the
Paleocene The Paleocene ( ), or Palaeocene, is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 66 to 56 mya (unit), million years ago (mya). It is the first epoch of the Paleogene Period (geology), Period in the modern Cenozoic Era (geology), ...
, although previous studies estimated a
Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 143.1 to 66 mya (unit), million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era (geology), Era, as well as the longest. At around 77.1 million years, it is the ...
divergence. Two different hypotheses for this divergence have been proposed: one that the Mantellidae and Rhacophoridae diverged when
Insular India Insular India was an isolated landmass which became the Indian subcontinent. Across the latter stages of the Cretaceous and most of the Paleocene, following the breakup of Gondwana, the Indian subcontinent remained an isolated landmass as the Ind ...
broke from Madagascar, with the Rhacophoridae colonizing the rest of Asia following the collision of India with Asia, and the other proposing that the common ancestors of both families inhabited Asia, with the ancestral Mantellidae colonizing Madagascar from India via
long-distance dispersal Biological dispersal refers to both the movement of individuals (animals, plants, fungi, bacteria, etc.) from their birth site to their breeding site ('natal dispersal') and the movement from one breeding site to another ('breeding dispersal' ...
, using India as a stepping stone.


Genera

* Subfamily
Buergeriinae ''Buergeria'' is a genus of frogs in the family Rhacophoridae, and the sole genus of subfamily Buergeriinae. It is the sister taxon for all the other rhacophorids (subfamily Rhacophorinae). The available genetic data firmly supports this positio ...
Channing, 1989 ** ''
Buergeria ''Buergeria'' is a genus of frogs in the family Rhacophoridae, and the sole genus of subfamily Buergeriinae. It is the sister taxon for all the other rhacophorids (subfamily Rhacophorinae). The available genetic data firmly supports this positio ...
'' Tschudi, 1838 * Subfamily
Rhacophorinae The Rhacophorinae are a subfamily of frogs in the family Rhacophoridae. They range from tropical Africa and Asia to temperate China and Japan. Genera The following genera are recognised in the subfamily Rhacophorinae, representing 422 species: * ...
Hoffman, 1932 (1858) ** '' Beddomixalus'' Abraham, Pyron, Ansil, Zachariah, and Zachariah, 2013 ** ''
Chirixalus ''Chirixalus'' is a genus of frogs in the moss frog family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms th ...
'' Boulenger, 1893 ** ''
Chiromantis ''Chiromantis'' is a genus of frogs in the family Rhacophoridae, commonly known as foam-nest frogs or foam-nest tree frogs. It contains species from the Sub-Saharan African tropics. Following the molecular genetic study by Chen and colleagues (2 ...
'' Peters, 1854 ** '' Feihyla'' Frost, Grant, Faivovich, Bain, Haas, Haddad, de Sá, Channing, Wilkinson, Donnellan, Raxworthy, Campbell, Blotto, Moler, Drewes, Nussbaum, Lynch, Green, and Wheeler, 2006 ** ''
Ghatixalus ''Ghatixalus'' is a genus of frogs in the family Rhacophoridae, subfamily Rhacophorinae. They are endemic to the Western Ghats of southern India. They are the sister taxon to a larger clade consisting of '' Chiromantis'', '' Feihyla'', '' Taru ...
'' Biju, Roelants, and Bossuyt, 2008 ** ''
Gracixalus ''Gracixalus'' is a genus of shrub frogs (family Rhacophoridae) from south-eastern Asia. Phylogenetic evidence indicates that it is the sister genus to the genus '' Vampyrius'', which contains the vampire tree frog A vampire is a mythic ...
'' Delorme, Dubois, Grosjean, and Ohler, 2005 ** '' Kurixalus'' Ye, Fei, and Dubois, 1999 ** '' Leptomantis'' Peters, 1867 ** '' Liuixalus'' Li, Che, Bain, Zhao, and Zhang, 2008 ** '' Mercurana'' Abraham ''et al''., 2013 ** ''
Nasutixalus ''Nasutixalus'' is a genus of frogs in the family Rhacophoridae. The genus is found in northeastern India and adjacent southeastern Tibet as well as western Yunnan (China); the range might extend into the adjacent Nepal and Myanmar. Common name r ...
'' Jiang, Yan, Wang, and Che, 2016 ** '' Nyctixalus'' Boulenger, 1882 ** ''
Philautus ''Philautus'' is a genus of shrub frogs in the family Rhacophoridae from Asia. Some species in this genus are now considered extinct by IUCN, while others are widespread and abundant (such as the recently described ''P. abundus'', which was spe ...
'' Gistel, 1848 ** ''
Polypedates ''Polypedates'' is a genus of frogs in the family (biology), family Rhacophoridae, the shrub frogs and Paleotropic tree frogs. They belong to subfamily Rhacophorinae. Members of this genus are collectively known as whipping frogs. They occur in ...
'' Tschudi, 1838 ** ''
Pseudophilautus ''Pseudophilautus'' is a genus of shrub frogs in the family Rhacophoridae endemic to the Western Ghats of southwestern India and to Sri Lanka where the majority of the species are found. Many of them are already extinct (marked with † in the s ...
'' Laurent, 1943 ** ''
Raorchestes ''Raorchestes'' is a genus of frogs in the subfamily Rhacophorinae that are found in mountainous regions of South Asia, Southeast Asia, and southern China. A recent study places ''Raorchestes'' as a sister taxon of '' Pseudophilautus''. Before ...
'' Biju, Shouche, Dubois, Dutta, and Bossuyt, 2010 ** ''
Rhacophorus ''Rhacophorus'' is a genus of frogs in the shrub-frog family Rhacophoridae, which, with the related Hylidae, is one of the two genera of true tree frogs. They are found in China, India, Japan, and throughout Southeast Asia, including the island ...
'' Kuhl and Van Hasselt, 1822 ** '' Rohanixalus'' Biju, Garg, Gokulakrishnan, Chandrakasan, Thammachoti, Ren, Gopika, Bisht, Hamidy, and Shouche, 2020 ** '' Taruga'' Meegaskumbura, Meegaskumbura, Bowatte, Manamendra-Arachchi, Pethiyagoda, Hanken, and Schneider, 2010 ** ''
Theloderma ''Theloderma'', the bug-eyed frogs, mossy frogs or warty frogs, is a genus of frogs in the family Rhacophoridae, subfamily Rhacophorinae. They are found from northeastern India and southern China, through Southeast Asia, to the Greater Sunda Isla ...
'' Tschudi, 1838 ** '' Vampyrius'' Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021 ** ''
Zhangixalus ''Zhangixalus'' is a genus of frogs in the subfamily Rhacophorinae, family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relation ...
'' Li, Jiang, Ren, and Jiang, 2019


Phylogeny

This phylogeny of the Rhacophoridae is from Yu et al. (2008):Yu Guohua, Rao Dingqi, Zhang Mingwang, Yang Junxing. Re-examination of the phylogeny of Rhacophoridae (Anura) based on mitochondrial and nuclear DNA. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 50 (2009) 571–579. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2008.11.023


Parasites

As many frogs, rhacophorids harbour
monogenea Monogeneans, members of the class Monogenea, are a group of ectoparasitic flatworms commonly found on the skin, gills, or fins of fish. They have a direct lifecycle and do not require an intermediate host. Adults are hermaphrodites, meaning they ...
n worms in their
urinary bladder The bladder () is a hollow organ in humans and other vertebrates that stores urine from the Kidney (vertebrates), kidneys. In placental mammals, urine enters the bladder via the ureters and exits via the urethra during urination. In humans, the ...
s. The parasite species specialized to this family of frogs belong to the
genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...
''Indopolystoma'', described in 2019.


References

*


External links

* * {{Authority control Amphibian families