Xenophrys

Xenophrys
Xenophrys aceras
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Amphibia
Order:	Anura
Family:	Megophryidae
Subfamily:	Megophryinae
Genus:	Xenophrys Günther, 1864
Type species
Xenophrys monticola Günther, 1864
Species
See text

Xenophrys is a genus of amphibians in the family Megophryidae. They are found in southeastern Asia (including China and northeastern India) to Borneo. Their common name is strange-horned toads. ^[1]

Tadpole of Xenophrys brachykolos

Conservation

Of the 36 Xenophrys species that the International Union for Conservation of Nature has evaluated, most are either "Data Deficient" or of "Least Concern". However, one species is considered "Critically Endangered" ( Xenophrys damrei ) "Endangered" ( Xenophrys takensis ), one is "Vulnerable" ( Xenophrys auralensis ), and six are "Near Threatened". ^[2]

Taxonomy

The genus was previously found to be strongly polyphyletic, and awaiting a better solution, they were synonymized in the genus Megophrys . ^[1] Following subsequent studies and reclassification, the genus has been revalidated. ^[3]

Species

Presently, Amphibian Species of the World classifies the following 31 species in Xenophrys: ^[1]

• Xenophrys aceras (Boulenger, 1903) — Perak horned toad
• Xenophrys ancrae (Mahony, Teeling & Biju, 2013) — Namdapha horned toadfrog
• Xenophrys apatani Saikia et al., 2024 ^[4]
• Xenophrys auralensis (Ohler, Swan, and Daltry, 2002) — Aural horned toad
• Xenophrys awuh (Mahony, Kamei, Teeling, and Biju, 2020) — Naga Hills horned frog
• Xenophrys damrei (Mahony, 2011) — Damrei horned toad
• Xenophrys dzukou (Mahony, Kamei, Teeling, and Biju, 2020) — Dzükou Valley horned frog
• Xenophrys flavipunctata (Mahony, Kamei, Teeling, and Biju, 2018) — yellow spotted white-lipped horned frog
• Xenophrys glandulosa (Fei, Ye, and Huang, 1990) — glandular horned toad
• Xenophrys himalayana (Mahony, Kamei, Teeling, and Biju, 2018) — Himalayan horned frog
• Xenophrys lekaguli (Stuart, Chuaynkern, Chan-ard, and Inger, 2006) — Lekagul's horned toad
• Xenophrys longipes (Boulenger, 1886) — red-legged horned toad
• Xenophrys major (Boulenger, 1908) — Great Stream horned toad
• Xenophrys mangshanensis (Fei and Ye, 1990) — Mangshan horned toad
• Xenophrys maosonensis (Bourret, 1937) — Maoson horned toad
• Xenophrys medogensis (Fei, Ye, and Huang, 1983) — Medog horned toad
• Xenophrys megacephala (Mahony, Sengupta, Kamei, and Biju, 2011) — big-headed horned frog
• Xenophrys monticola Günther, 1864 — mountain horned frog
• Xenophrys numhbumaeng (Mahony, Kamei, Teeling, and Biju, 2020) — Tamenglong horned frog
• Xenophrys oreocrypta (Mahony, Kamei, Teeling, and Biju, 2018) — Garo white-lipped horned frog
• Xenophrys oropedion (Mahony, Teeling & Biju, 2013) — Shyllong horned toad
• Xenophrys pachyproctus (Huang, 1981) — convex-vented horned toad
• Xenophrys periosa (Mahony, Kamei, Teeling, and Biju, 2018) — giant Himalayan horned frog
• Xenophrys robusta (Boulenger, 1908) — robust horned toad
• Xenophrys serchhipii Mathew and Sen, 2007 — Serchhip horned toad
• Xenophrys takensis (Mahony, 2011) — Tak horned toad
• Xenophrys tongbiguanensis (Wu, Yu, Chen, and Che, 2025) - Tongbiguan horned toad
• Xenophrys truongsonensis Luong, Hoang, Pham, Nguyen, Orlov, Ziegler, and Nguyen, 2022 — Truongson horned toad
• Xenophrys vegrandis (Mahony, Teeling, Biju, 2013)
• Xenophrys yeae (Shi, Zhang, Xie, Jiang, Liu, Ding, Luan, and Wang, 2020) — Ye's horned toad
• Xenophrys zhangi (Ye and Fei, 1992) — Zhang's horned toad
• Xenophrys zhoui (Shi, Zhang, Xie, Jiang, Liu, Ding, Luan, and Wang, 2020) — Zhou's horned toad
• Xenophrys zunhebotoensis Mathew and Sen, 2007 — Zunheboto horned toad

References

1. Frost, Darrel R. (2013). "Xenophrys Günther, 1864". Amphibian Species of the World 5.6, an Online Reference. American Museum of Natural History. Retrieved 26 July 2013.
2. IUCN (2014). "IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2013.2. <www.iucnredlist.org>". Archived from the original on June 27, 2014. Retrieved 11 January 2014.
3. Chen, Jin-Min; Zhou, Wei-Wei; Poyarkov, Nikolay A.; Stuart, Bryan L.; Brown, Rafe M.; Lathrop, Amy; Wang, Ying-Yong; Yuan, Zhi-Yong; Jiang, Ke; Hou, Mian; Chen, Hong-Man; Suwannapoom, Chatmongkon; Nguyen, Sang Ngoc; Duong, Tang Van; Papenfuss, Theodore J. (2017-01-01). "A novel multilocus phylogenetic estimation reveals unrecognized diversity in Asian horned toads, genus Megophrys sensu lato (Anura: Megophryidae)". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 106: 28–43. doi: 10.1016/j.ympev.2016.09.004 . ISSN   1055-7903. PMID   27622725.
4. Bhaskar Saikia, Bikramjit Sinha, A. Shabnam, et al. 2024. On A New Species of Xenophrys (Anura: Megophryidae) from Tale Wildlife Sanctuary, Arunachal Pradesh, India with Comments on the earlier erroneous report as X. maosonensis (Bourret, 1937). Records of the Zoological Survey of India. 124 (Special issue of ATS 2024); 21-40.