Odorrana arunachalensis Saikia, Sinha & Kharkongor, 2017

The case of Odorrana arunachalensis Saikia, Sinha & Kharkongor, 2017 View in CoL in Nanorana

Reassigning this species to a different genus than Nanorana (where it was placed by Qi et al. 2019) was recently discussed by Hofmann et al. (2023 a), based on its phylogenetic position in a 16S mitochondrial tree and its high sequence differentiation (>14 %) from any other Nanorana members. However, the type locality was not genetically assessed, and whether the analyzed vouchers correspond to this taxon deserves confirmation. Therefore, enforcing this species in Nanorana as Tang et al. (2023) suggested appears premature, and because its phylogenetic, and therefore taxonomic placement is unsettled, it would be correct and more parsimonious to classify this taxon as “ insertae sedis ”, and continue to refer to it as Odorrana arunachalensis Saikia, Sinha & Kharkongor, 2017 (for more details see the discussion in Hofmann et al. 2023 a).

The case of Allopaa hazarensis ( Dubois & Khan, 1979) in subgenus Chaparana Bourret, 1939

In the 16S Bayesian phylogeny of Tang et al. (2023; Fig. 3), this taxon, endemic to northern Pakistan, branches (without support) as the sister lineage of Nanorana unculuanus ( Liu, Hu, Yang, 1960) (subgenus Chaparana ), noting that none of the known Nanorana subgenera form a monophyletic clade in this analysis. In their concatenated four genes phylogeny, A. hazarensis is robustly retrieved as the sister lineage of Chaparana . Based on these conflicting observations, Tang et al. (2023) present Allopaa as being lumped with Chaparana . However, the authors do not discuss this new arrangement, which otherwise appears superficial. According to Hofmann et al. (2021 a, 2023 a), the extremely disjunct distribution range ( Allopaa is the westernmost Himalayan taxon among Nanorana , while Chaparana members occur at the opposite side of the Himalaya-Tibet orogen), as well as the morphological data of Ohler & Dubois (2006) on Allopaa , this taxon should continue to be treated as a separate subgenus of Nanorana ( Hofmann et al. 2024) .