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 of Borneo. Over 40 species are currently recognised.
These frogs have long toes with strong webbing between them, enabling the animals to jump from tree to tree, using the webbing to control a gliding descent, a form of arboreal locomotion known as parachuting. This behavioral adaptation is the source of their common name, "flying frogs".
The present genus is closely related to Polypedates, which (formerly) was included in Rhacophorus. Even today, it is not fully agreed upon which of these genera "P." feae and the Chinese flying frog ("R." dennysi) properly belong to; furthermore, a supposedly new species, "P. pingbianensis", has been found to be the same as R. duboisi.
Reproduction These frogs lay their eggs in aerial foam nests; upon hatching, tadpoles drop to the water under the nest and complete their development there. Some species like Rhacophorus kio will wrap this and cover this foam nest with leaves.
Species These species are recognised in the genus Rhacophorus:
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 – 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 napoensis Li, Liu, Yu, and Sun, 2022 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 trangdinhensis Kropachev, Evsyunin, Orlov, and Nguyen, 2022 Rhacophorus translineatus Wu, 1977 Rhacophorus tuberculatus (Anderson, 1871) Rhacophorus turpes Smith, 1940 Rhacophorus vanbanicus Kropachev, Orlov, Ninh, and Nguyen, 2019 Rhacophorus verrucopus Huang, 1983 Rhacophorus viridimaculatus Ostroshabov, Orlov, and Nguyen, 2013
Phylogeny The following is a partial phylogeny of Rhacophorus from Pyron & Wiens (2011). Only nine species are included. Rhacophorus is a sister group of Polypedates.
References
External links
Amphibian and Reptiles of Peninsular Malaysia - Family Rhacophoridae