Philautus charius Rao 1937
Creators: name: Biju, S. D.
name: Bossuyt, Franky
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2009
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Chordata
Amphibia
Anura
Rhacophoridae
Philautus
Philautus charius

description: PHILAUTUS CHARIUS RAO, 1937   
(FIGS 2, 14D, 20; TABLE 2)  
 Type material: Neotype, MNHN 1999.5597, an adult male, SVL 29.0 mm, from the hills around Chikmalagur (i.e. Chikmagalur), Chikmalagur district, Karnataka, India (Bossuyt & Dubois, 2001).   
 Other material studied: BNHS 4420 and BNHS 4421, two adult males, from Chikmagalur; BNHS 4422 and BNHS 4423, two adult males, from Mercara; BNHS 4424, an adult male, from Kottigehara; SDB 40213, an adult male, from Muthodi (Table 2).   
 Diagnosis: Philautus charius can be distinguished from known congeners by the following combination of characters: (1) medium male adult size (27.2– 31.4 mm, N = 7); (2) dorsum with small horny spinules; (3) groin and posterior part of thighs uniform brownish black with large yellow blotches; (4) short head (HL/ SVL = 0.309 –0.345, N = 7).   
 Philautus charius, P. coonoorensis sp. nov., and P. griet form a strongly supported clade in our phylogenetic analyses (Fig. 2). These three species can be easily differentiated from each other on the basis of the characters listed below.   
 Philautus charius: (1) medium male adult size (27.2–31.4 mm, N = 7); (2) snout shorter than, or subequal to the horizontal diameter of the eye; (3) groin brownish black with yellow blotches; (4) posterior surface of thighs uniform brownish black with large yellow blotches; (5) relatively short hindlimbs, ShL/ SVL ratio < 0.5.   
 Philautus coonoorensis sp. nov.: (1) small male adult size (20.7–23.8 mm, N = 5); (2) snout clearly longer than horizontal diameter of the eye; (3) groin light grey with dark-brown patches; (4) posterior surface of thighs dark brown with variable size of grey patches; (5) relatively long hindlimbs, ShL/SVL ratio > 0.5.   
 Philautus griet: (1) small male adult size (19.7– 22.4 mm, N = 5); (2) snout shorter than, or subequal to the horizontal diameter of the eye; (3) groin light brown with minute white marbling; (4) posterior surface of thighs brown with minute grey spots; (5) relatively short hindlimbs, ShL/SVL ratio < 0.5.   
 Description of the neotype: A detailed description was published in Bossuyt & Dubois (2001).   
 Variation: Measurements are given in Table 2.   
 Colour variation in life: dorsum usually light brown with various numbers of deep-brown irregular patches, a brown stripe between the eyes demarcates a triangular grey snout, loreal and tympanic regions light brown with black spots, a pair of greyish brown concave bands extending from below the level of the eye to the groin (Fig. 20); iris light brown, encircled with thin greyish outer ring. Dorsal side of limbs with dark-grey cross bands. However, the groins and posterior part of the thighs are invariably uniform brownish black with large yellow blotches.   
 Distribution and natural history: Chikmagalur, Muthodi, Mercara, and Kottigehara in Karnataka (Fig. 14D, Table 1). These frogs mostly call from about 0.5 to 1.5-m high on the stems of shrubs.
description: Published as part of Biju, S. D. & Bossuyt, Franky, 2009, Systematics and phylogeny of Philautus Gistel, 1848 (Anura, Rhacophoridae) in the Western Ghats of India, with descriptions of 12 new species, pp. 374-444 in Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 155 (2) on page 402, DOI: 10.1111/j.1096-3642.2008.00466.x, http://zenodo.org/record/5445358