Rhacophorus htunwini Wilkinson, Thin, Lwin & Shein, 2005

Bordoloi, Sabitry, Bortamuli, Tutul & Ohler, Annemarie, 2007, Systematics of the genus Rhacophorus (Amphibia, Anura): identity of red-webbed forms and description of a new species from Assam, Zootaxa 1653, pp. 1-20 : 8-9

Identity of Rhacophorus htunwini Wilkinson, Thin, Lwin & Shein, 2005

Wilkinson et al. (2005) gave the following differences between Rhacophorus htunwini and R. bipunctatus . Their new species can be distinguished from R. bipunctatus by its larger size, by the bright green dorsal colour in life that becomes late blue when preserved. The eye of R. htunwini contains yellow in the upper and lower portion of the iris, which is absent in R. bipunctatus . Crossbands on fore and hind limbs are faint in R. htunwini , but distinct in R. bipunctatus . The dermal fringe on the forearm and the dermal calcar at the heel, the webbing on the hand are more extensive in R. htunwini than in R. bipunctatus . Usually R. htunwini shows two black spots of equal size on the sides, whereas R. bipunctatus has usually only a single spot, or a posterior spot that is smaller than the anterior one.

If we compare these distinctive characters with the onomatophores of Rhacophorus maculatus , size appears similar (37.8–50.4 mm in R. htunwini ; 38.4–41.7 mm in R. maculatus ). Dorsal colour is blue in all specimens of the hypodigm studied and green in specimens allocated to R. bipunctatus from northeastern India. Eye colour cannot be observed in fixed specimens. Crossbands are faint in all specimens studied. Dermal calcar, fringe on forearm and webbing of hand are large and well developed in these specimens. Presence of spots on side is quite more variable than in the single population where the hypodigm of R. htunwini came from, and about half the frogs show a single spot only.

In Table 2 we give size measurement of specimens allocated in this work to Rhacophorus bipunctatus , rhodopus or a species described as new here, from different geographic origin to allow comparison.

The differences mentioned by Wilkinson et al. (2005) are due to allocation to the nomen R. bipunctatus by many authors of specimens which belong in large part to R. rhodopus (see above).

In conclusion there is only a single character, presence of spots on flanks that shows difference. This character shows ontological ( Anderson, 1871) and intra-populational variation, and more data are needed to understand its pattern and genetic background. As there are no consistent differences between the hypodigm of R. htunwini and the symphoronts of R. maculatus , these two nomina should be considered synonyms and the valid nomen should be Rhacophorus bipunctatus .

TABLE 2. Comparison of size of specimens of Rhacophorus bipunctatus , R. rhodopus and R. suffry from different geographic origin. SVL—snout vent length; N—number, hl —hoc loco.

suffry Assam, India 38.5–52.9 (N= 5) 31.5–61.0 (N=7) hl