TerralogNEWS101
12
hen an animal has as many
common names as this, the
chances are that it is a widespread
W
It bellows like an ox, it’s shaped like a bubble, it’s got a wide…or a
narrow…mouth, it can inflateanddeflate itsbodyatwill,and isnative to
Singapore…or not! This remarkable creature is the banded, ox, rice,
piebald digging, chubby, bubble, Asian painted, Malaysian narrow-
mouthed frogor toad,or paintedor Asianbullfrog,
Kaloulapulchra
.
Focuson
Kaloulapulchra
by JohnDawes
Frösche
species.
Kaloulapulchra
is certainly such a
species. Its broad natural distribution is
given as Southeast Asia, South Asia and
Lexicon
Kaloulapulchra
Kaloula:not explained in the
original description,but probablya
name that Reeves, the collector,
communicated toGray, the
describer,as thenameused for the
species inChina.
pulchra:Latin,meaning“beautiful”.
China, a vast area by any standards. In
addition, it is reported as having been
introduced into Taiwan and Guam, and
(possibly) intoNewZealand,Australiaand
Borneo. Some references suggest that it
has also been introduced into Singapore.
However, theWorldConservationUnion‘s
(IUCN) entry for the species states that it is
actuallynative toSingapore.
Alongwithnearly 415 species in some 69
genera,
Kaloula pulchra
belongs to the
familyMicrohylidae (the so-callednarrow-
mouthed frogs), subfamily Microhylinae.
As the family name implies, microhylid
frogs are small (hence the ‘micro’), with
some species only attaining 1.5cm in
length.
K. pulchra
is one of the larger
species,but,evenso,onlygrows toaround
7.5cm.
Maleof apopulationof
Kaloulapulchra
imported fromChina.
All photos:F.Schäfer
