Glyphoglossus molossus

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Glyphoglossus molossus
Glyphoglossus molossus

Glyphoglossus molossus

Systematics
Order : Frog (anura)
Subordination : Neobatrachia
Family : Narrow-mouth frogs (Microhylidae)
Subfamily : Real narrow-mouth frogs (Microhylinae)
Genre : Glyphoglossus
Type : Glyphoglossus molossus
Scientific name
Glyphoglossus molossus
Günther , 1869

Glyphoglossus molossus is a species of the frog from the subfamily of the real narrow-mouth frogs (Microhylinae) in the family of the narrow-mouth frogs (Microhylidae). It was first described by Albert Günther in a publication from 1869. The frog species is common in Southeast Asia.

features

The head of Glyphoglossus molossus is short, the mouth is very narrow. The eyes are small, the pupils are vertical. The tympanum is hidden. A canthus rostralis cannot be detected externally. The tongue is long, freely movable and divided lengthways by a deep furrow. The fleshy part of the lower jaw forms a thick fold that hangs down like a lip in a semicircle.

The limbs are very short, the body massive, which led to the English trivial name Balloon Frog (German: balloon frog). The webbed toes extend to the tips of the toes. The metatarsal bone has a flat, scoop-shaped elevation that is used for digging. The skin is leathery and smooth, at most very finely granulated. The color of the back is brownish olive, the flanks and limbs are marbled with shades of brown. The abdomen and the undersides of the extremities are whitish gray.

The type specimen was 5 centimeters tall and came from the area around Pegu in what was then Burma, today's Myanmar .

Occurrence

The distribution area of Glyphoglossus molossus extends from Myanmar via Thailand and southern Laos to Cambodia and southern Vietnam . In addition to deciduous subtropical and tropical forests up to 600 meters above sea level, its natural habitat also includes forests in the lowlands, wet savannas and wetlands along the rivers as well as formerly cleared forest areas.

Way of life

The frogs are ground dwellers and burrow in the leaves and in the damp earth. They breed in larger temporary bodies of water such as ponds and ditches during the rainy season. The male clasps the female in the amplexus and the pair of frogs dives several times under the water surface, where each time 200 to 300 eggs are released into the water by the female and fertilized by the male. The immersion process takes around six seconds, the pause between the release of different clutches is five seconds.

Danger

In the rainy season, the large frogs are often sold in local markets, where they are a popular food for the population. The large quantities in which the frogs are offered either indicate that Glyphoglossus molossus is still found in large populations or that it is intensively collected during the breeding season, when it is easy to catch. That could go a long way towards reducing stocks. The expansion of human settlement areas and the clearing of the forests in the frogs' habitat represent further potential threats.

Systematics

For a long time Glyphoglossus molossus was compared to other frog species from the group of real narrow-mouth frogs because of its external characteristics and remained the only representative of its genus. In molecular biology studies in the second decade of the 21st century, however, it turned out that Glyphoglossus molossus could always be genetically classified in the relationship of the genus Calluella , namely in the vicinity of Calluella guttulata and Calluella yunnanensis . The genus Calluella had to be viewed as paraphyletic and merged with Glyphoglossus . The older genus name Glyphoglossus was therefore transferred to the eight Calluella species known until 2015 according to the priority rule , so that the genus together with its type Glyphoglossus molossus comprises nine species.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Albert CLG Günther: First account of species of tailless batrachians added to the collection of the British Museum. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 1868, pp. 478-490, London 1869, p. 483 (first description)
  2. ↑ a b Glyphoglossus molossus in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2004 Posted by: Peter Paul van Dijk, Tanya Chan-ard, 2004. Accessed October 14, 2015.
  3. ↑ Ronald Altig & Jodi JL Rowley: The breeding behavior of Glyphoglossus molossus and the tadpoles of Glyphoglossus molossus and Calluella guttulata (Microhylidae). Zootaxa, 3811, 3, pp. 381-386, June 2014 doi : 10.11646 / zootaxa.3811.3.9
  4. ↑ Pedro LV Peloso, Darrel R. Frost, Stephen J. Richards, Miguel T. Rodrigues, Stephen Donnellan, Masafumi Matsui, Cristopher J. Raxworthy, SD Biju, Emily Moriarty Lemmon, Alan R. Lemmon & Ward C. Wheeler: The impact of anchored phylogenomics and taxon sampling on phylogenetic inference in narrow-mouthed frogs (Anura, Microhylidae). Cladistics, 3, 1-28, March 2015 doi : 10.1111 / cla.12118

literature

  • Albert CLG Günther: First account of species of tailless batrachians added to the collection of the British Museum. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 1868, pp. 478-490, London 1869, p. 483 (first description)

Web links

Commons : Glyphoglossus molossus  - collection of images, videos and audio files