Kaloula pulchra Gray, 1831

Luong, Anh Mai, Phan, Tien Quang, Nguyen, Truong Quang, Tran, Tung Thanh, Ngo, Hien Thu Thi, van Schingen-Khan, Mona, Ziegler, Thomas & Pham, Cuong The, 2025, New records and an updated checklist of the herpetofauna from Tay Yen Tu Nature Reserve, north-eastern Vietnam, Biodiversity Data Journal 13, pp. e 157862-e 157862 : e157862-

Kaloula pulchra Gray, 1831

Materials

Type status: Other material. Occurrence: catalogNumber: IB A. 6380 ; individualCount: 1; sex: female; lifeStage: adult; occurrenceID: E5F34920-8355-5AD7-AADB-3E4DB3973D69; Taxon: scientificNameID: Kaloula pulchra ; scientificName: Kaloula pulchra ; class: Amphibia; order: Anura ; family: Microhylidae ; genus: Kaloula ; specificEpithet: pulchra ; scientificNameAuthorship: Gray, 1831; Location: country: Vietnam; countryCode: VN; stateProvince: Bac Giang; locality: Tay Yen Tu NR ; verbatimElevation: 250 m; verbatimLatitude: 21°11.057’N; verbatimLongitude: 106°42.930’E; verbatimCoordinateSystem: WGS 84; Event: eventDate: 4 July 2015; eventRemarks: collected by Pham T. C, van Schingen-Khan M., and Barthel L.; Record Level: language: en; collectionCode: Amphibia; basisOfRecord: PreservedSpecimen

Description

Morphological characters of the specimen from Tay Yen Tu NR agreed well with descriptions of Bourret (1942) and Taylor (1962). Size medium (SVL 60.4 mm); head shorter than wide (HL 17.4 mm, HW 20.6 mm); snout round, longer than eye diameter (RL 6.2 mm, ED 5.9 mm); nostrils round, closer to the tip of snout than to eye (NS 2.7 mm, EN 3.6 mm); canthus rostralis scarcely indicated, loreal region sloping obliquely, not concave; tympanum indistinct; vomerine teeth present; tongue notched posteriorly. Fore-limbs: Arms short; upper arm length (UAL 9.1 mm), forearm length (FAL 33.8 mm); relative finger lengths I <II <IV <III, tips of fingers enlarged; fingers free of webbing. Hind-limbs: Thigh short (FeL 24.9 mm); tibia three times longer than wide (TbL 22.5 mm, TbW 7.8 mm); relative toe lengths I <II <V <III <IV; tips of toes not enlarged; webbing rudimentary. Skin: Dorsal surface of head and body finely granular with some scattered pustular tubercles, ventral surface granulate. Colouration in life: Dorsal surface of head and body dark brown; an irregularly-edged light brown diagonal stripe from eye to groin; flanks dark brown; Dorsal surface of limbs with some light brown pattern; ventral surface light grey with grey markings (Fig. 3 ).

Distribution

In Vietnam, this species has been recorded from Bac Kan and Thai Nguyen Provinces in the north southwards to Tay Ninh and Ca Mau Provinces ( Nguyen et al. 2009, Frost 2025). Elsewhere, this species has been recorded from Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand ( Frost 2025).

Ecology

The specimen was found at 21: 00 h, on the forest path. The surrounding habitat was mixed secondary evergreen forest of medium and small hardwoods with shrubs and arrowroot. Air temperatures at the sites ranged from 26.3 ° C to 33.8 ° C and relative humidity ranged from 65 % to 84 %.

Figures

Figure 3. Kaloula pulchra (female, IB A. 6380).