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 strategically jump from tree to tree when threatened, using their webbing to gracefully “fall”, controlling their descent into a gliding motion. This is 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
Amphibians of Asia
Amphibian genera
Taxa named by Heinrich Kuhl
Taxa named by Johan Conrad van Hasselt