The Rhacophoridae are a family of frogs in tropical sub-Saharan Africa, South India and Sri Lanka, Japan, northeastern India to eastern China and Taiwan, south through the Philippines and Greater Sundas, and Sulawesi. They are commonly known as shrub frogs, or more ambiguously as "moss frogs" or "bush frogs". Some Rhacophoridae are called "tree frogs". Among the most spectacular members of this family are numerous "flying frogs".

Although a few groups are primarily terrestrial, rhacophorids are predominantly arboreal treefrogs. Mating frogs, while in amplexus, hold on to a branch, and beat their legs to form a foam. The eggs are laid in the foam and covered with seminal fluid before the foam hardens into a protective casing. In certain species, this process occurs collectively. The foam is deposited above a water source, ensuring that the tadpoles drop into the water upon hatching.

The species within this family vary in size from . Like other arboreal frogs, they have toe discs, and those of the genus Chiromantis have two opposable fingers on each hand. This family also contains the Old World flying frogs, including Wallace's flying frog (Rhacophorus nigropalmatus). These frogs have extensive webbing between their fore and hind limbs, allowing them to glide through the air.

Taxonomy

Evolution Taxonomic relationships within the Rhacophoridae are incompletely understood. Molecular phylogenetic analyses indicate that some cryptic species remain undescribed, while taxa currently considered separate species may need to be synonymized.

The Rhacophoridae are the sister group to the Mantellidae, a family of frogs restricted to Madagascar. The two families are thought to have diverged during the Paleocene, although previous studies estimated a Cretaceous divergence. Two different hypotheses for this divergence have been proposed: one that the Mantellidae and Rhacophoridae diverged when Insular India broke from Madagascar, with the Rhacophoridae colonizing the rest of Asia following the collision of India with Asia, and the other proposing that the common ancestors of both families inhabited Asia, with the ancestral Mantellidae colonizing Madagascar from India via long-distance dispersal, using India as a stepping stone.

Genera

Subfamily Buergeriinae Channing, 1989 Buergeria Tschudi, 1838 Subfamily Rhacophorinae Hoffman, 1932 (1858) Beddomixalus Abraham, Pyron, Ansil, Zachariah, and Zachariah, 2013 Chirixalus Boulenger, 1893 Chiromantis Peters, 1854 Feihyla Frost, Grant, Faivovich, Bain, Haas, Haddad, de Sá, Channing, Wilkinson, Donnellan, Raxworthy, Campbell, Blotto, Moler, Drewes, Nussbaum, Lynch, Green, and Wheeler, 2006 Ghatixalus Biju, Roelants, and Bossuyt, 2008 Gracixalus Delorme, Dubois, Grosjean, and Ohler, 2005 Kurixalus Ye, Fei, and Dubois, 1999 Leptomantis Peters, 1867 Liuixalus Li, Che, Bain, Zhao, and Zhang, 2008 Mercurana Abraham et al., 2013 Nasutixalus Jiang, Yan, Wang, and Che, 2016 Nyctixalus Boulenger, 1882 Philautus Gistel, 1848 Polypedates Tschudi, 1838 Pseudophilautus Laurent, 1943 Raorchestes Biju, Shouche, Dubois, Dutta, and Bossuyt, 2010 Rhacophorus Kuhl and Van Hasselt, 1822 Rohanixalus Biju, Garg, Gokulakrishnan, Chandrakasan, Thammachoti, Ren, Gopika, Bisht, Hamidy, and Shouche, 2020 Taruga Meegaskumbura, Meegaskumbura, Bowatte, Manamendra-Arachchi, Pethiyagoda, Hanken, and Schneider, 2010 Theloderma Tschudi, 1838 Vampyrius Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021 Zhangixalus Li, Jiang, Ren, and Jiang, 2019

Phylogeny This phylogeny of the Rhacophoridae is from Yu et al. (2008):Yu Guohua, Rao Dingqi, Zhang Mingwang, Yang Junxing. Re-examination of the phylogeny of Rhacophoridae (Anura) based on mitochondrial and nuclear DNA. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 50 (2009) 571–579. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2008.11.023

Parasites Like many frogs, rhacophorids harbour monogenean worms in their urinary bladders. The parasite species specialized to this family of frogs belong to the genus Indopolystoma, described in 2019.

References

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