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 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 was included in Rhacophorus. Even today, it is not fully agreed upon which of these genera "P." feae and the Chinese flying frog 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 frogRhacophorus baluensis Inger, 1954Rhacophorus barisani Harvey, Pemberton, and Smith, 2002Rhacophorus bengkuluensis Streicher, Hamidy, Harvey, Anders, Shaney, Kurniawan, and Smith, 2014Rhacophorus bifasciatus Van Kampen, 1923Rhacophorus bipunctatus Ahl, 1927 Rhacophorus borneensis Matsui, Shimada, and Sudin, 2013Rhacophorus calcadensis Ahl, 1927 – Kalakad gliding frogRhacophorus calcaneus Smith, 1924Rhacophorus catamitus Harvey, Pemberton, and Smith, 2002Rhacophorus edentulus Müller, 1894Rhacophorus exechopygus Inger, Orlov, and Darevsky, 1999Rhacophorus georgii Roux, 1904Rhacophorus helenae Rowley, Tran, Hoang & Le, 2012 – Helen's tree frogRhacophorus hoabinhensis Nguyen, Pham, Nguyen, Ninh, and Ziegler, 2017Rhacophorus hoanglienensis Orlov, Lathrop, Murphy, and Ho, 2001Rhacophorus indonesiensis Hamidy & Kurniati, 2015Rhacophorus kio Ohler & Delorme, 2005 – black-webbed treefrogRhacophorus laoshan Mo, Jiang, Xie, and Ohler, 2008Rhacophorus larissae Ostroshabov, Orlov, and Nguyen, 2013Rhacophorus lateralis Boulenger, 1883Rhacophorus malabaricus Jerdon, 1870 – Malabar gliding frogRhacophorus margaritifer Rhacophorus marmoridorsum Orlov, 2008Rhacophorus modestus Boulenger, 1920Rhacophorus monticola Boulenger, 1896Rhacophorus napoensis Li, Liu, Yu, and Sun, 2022Rhacophorus nigropalmatus Boulenger, 1895 – Wallace's flying frogRhacophorus norhayatii Chan and Grismer, 2010Rhacophorus orlovi Ziegler and Köhler, 2001Rhacophorus pardalis Günther, 1858 – harlequin tree frogRhacophorus poecilonotus Boulenger, 1920Rhacophorus pseudomalabaricus Vasudevan and Dutta, 2000Rhacophorus reinwardtii – black-webbed tree frog, green flying frog, Reinwardt's tree frogRhacophorus rhodopus Liu and Hu, 1960 Rhacophorus robertingeri Orlov, Poyarkov, Vassilieva, Ananjeva, Nguyen, Sang, and Geissler, 2012Rhacophorus spelaeus Orlov, Gnophanxay, Phimminith, and Phomphoumy, 2010Rhacophorus subansiriensis Mathew and Sen, 2009Rhacophorus trangdinhensis Kropachev, Evsyunin, Orlov, and Nguyen, 2022Rhacophorus translineatus Wu, 1977Rhacophorus tuberculatus Rhacophorus turpes Smith, 1940Rhacophorus vanbanicus Kropachev, Orlov, Ninh, and Nguyen, 2019Rhacophorus verrucopus Huang, 1983Rhacophorus viridimaculatus Ostroshabov, Orlov, and Nguyen, 2013
Phylogeny
The following is a partial phylogeny of Rhacophorus from Pyron & Wiens. Only nine species are included. Rhacophorus is a sister group of Polypedates.