Rana lessonae Camerano 1862

Rana lessonae Camerano 1882

Peter Beerli*

Voice

Description

A member of the water frog group with green backs which show black spots in females. Males are brightly yellowis-green during mating season. [More to follow..]

Distribution

In the west it extends to the Atlantic Ocean in France, in the north are a few populations in Sweden, in the northeast the distribution extends beyond St. Petersburg, the southern border is assumed to be the Danube in the east. Problematic is the distribution in Italy, the species is considered to be distributed throughout the Po valley, but seems to be parapatric with an unnamed peninsular taxon (the peninsular non-hybrid, D_Nei >= 0.2). In Kalabria Santucci et al. (pers. comm., 1995) found an other hybrid zone (genetic differences between parental taxa are D_Nei = 0.4) suggesting that an other species is occurring in the southermost Kalabria and Sicily (southern non-hybrid).

Voice

The following recordings a short sequences of longer recordings. These files are size reduced (MULAW 8-bit encoded) from 16-bit encoded sound files.

Rana lessonae

[A single call , Several calls ]

Souther non-hybrid

[A single call , Several calls ]

Synonyms

Valid name: Rana (Pelophylax) lessonae Camerano 1882

Synonyms: Rana esculenta var. sylvaticus Koch 1872, "Rana meridionalis" Lataste 1876, Rana esculenta acutirostris Lessona 1877, Rana esculenta obtusirostris Lessona 1877, Rana esculenta var. lessonae Camerano 1882, "Rana esculenta var. immaculata" Camerano 1882, "Rana esculenta var. maculata" Camerano 1882, "Rana esculenta var. punctata" Camerano 1882, "Rana esculenta var. nigrovittata" Camerano 1882, Rana esculenta var. bolkayi Fejervary 1909, Rana lessonae pannonica Karaman 1948.

References

Beerli H. Hotz, H. Tunner, S. Heppich, and T. Uzzell. 1994. Two new water 
        frog species from the Aegean islands Crete and Karpathos 
        (Amphibia, Salientia, Ranidae). Notulae Naturae, Academy of Natural 
        Sciences of Philadelphia 470:1-9.
        [see full text]
Beerli, P. 1994. Genetic isolation and calibration of an average protein 
        clock in western Palearctic water frogs of the Aegean region. 
        Dissertation Universität Zürich 1994. 
        [Summary]
Berger, L. 1983. Western Palearctic water frogs (Amphibia, Ranidae): 
        Systematics, genetics and population compositions. 
        Experientia 39(2): 127-130.
Dubois, A., and A. Ohler. 1994. Frogs of the subgenus Pelophylax 
        (Amphibia, Anura, genus Rana): a catalogue of available and 
        valid scientific names, with comments on the name-bearing types, 
        complete synonymies. proposed common names, and maps showing 
        all type localities.  In: M. Ogielska (Ed.): II International Symposium on
        Ecology and Genetics of European water frogs, 
        18-25 September 1994, Wroclaw, Poland. Zoologica Poloniae 39(3-4).
Graf, J.-D. and M. Polls Pelaz. 1989. Evolutionary genetics of the 
        Rana esculenta complex. In: Dawley, R.M. and J.P. Bogart (eds.): 
        Evolution and ecology of unisexual vertebrates. 
        New York State Museum Bulletin 466: 289-302.
Hotz, H. 1983. Genic diversity among water frog genomes 
        inherited with and without recombination.
        Ph.D. Thesis University of Zurich. pp. 136. 
Santucci, F., G. Nascetti, L. Bullini. 1995. Genetic structure
        of the hybridogenetic Rana esculenta from Italy.
        Fifth congress of the European Socieity for Evolutionary
        Biology, Edinburgh 4-8 September 1995. [Abstract].