Walkerana

Walkerana
Walkerana diplosticta – type species
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Amphibia
Order: Anura
Family: Ranixalidae
Genus: Walkerana
Dahanukar, Modak, Krutha, Nameer, Padhye, and Molur, 2016
Type species
Ixalus diplostictus
Günther, 1876
Synonyms

Sallywalkerana Dahanukar, Modak, Krutha, Nameer, Padhye, and Molur, 2016 – unnecessary replacement name

Walkerana is a group of frogs in the family Ranixalidae. These frogs live in the Western Ghat mountains in the states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, India. Scientists made this group in 2016 for three species that had been in Indirana because these frogs' bodies and DNA were so different from the frogs in Indirana that they needed a different group. Walkerana muduga had the first science paper written about it in 2020. These frogs live only in the very most south part of the Western Ghats, south of the Palghat Gap.

Etymology

The group's name comes from Sally Walker from the Zoo Outreach Organisation. It was renamed Sallywalkerana because of there was already a cricket genus Walkerana Otte and Perez-Gelabert, 2009, but that may be nomen nudum.

Description

Walkerana frogs have different DNA from other frogs in Ranixalidae. They are different from the other genus Indirana too: Walkerana frogs have much, much less webbed skin, with one finger bone with no webbing on the first and second toes (none in Indirana), and three toe bones with no webbing on the fourth toe (2–2½ in Indirana). The first toe on each front foot is shorter than the second one in Walkerana, but in most Indirana frogs, they are the same length or the first toe is longer.

Species

There are four species:

Scientists think there could be a fifth frog. They found one exact frog from north of the Palghat Gap, but they did not write about it because it had not been stopped from rotting.

Walkerana phrynoderma

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Dahanukar, Neelesh; Modak, Nikhil; Krutha, Keerthi; Nameer, P. O.; Padhye, Anand D. & Molur, Sanjay (2016). "Leaping frogs (Anura: Ranixalidae) of the Western Ghats of India: An integrated taxonomic review". Journal of Threatened Taxa. 8 (10): 9221–9288. doi:10.11609/jott.2532.8.10.9221-9288.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Frost, Darrel R. (2020). "Walkerana Dahanukar, Modak, Krutha, Nameer, Padhye, and Molur, 2016". Amphibian Species of the World: an Online Reference. Version 6.0. American Museum of Natural History. Retrieved 12 March 2020.
  3. 1 2 3 Dinesh, K.P.; Vijayakumar, S.P.; Ramesh, Vijay; Jayarajan, Aditi; Chandramouli, S.R. & Shanker, Kartik (2020). "A deeply divergent lineage of Walkerana (Anura: Ranixalidae) from the Western Ghats of Peninsular India". Zootaxa. 4729 (2): 266–276. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.4729.2.7. PMID 32229864. S2CID 213656373.