Corfu Frogs

[Ray Hamilton]

Hi,

Off to Corfu next week, could someone please advise me are both Epirus Water Frog, (Pelophylax epeiroticus) and Balkan Frog (Pelophylax kurtmuelleri) present on the island? There seems to be some confusion (in my mind anyway).

Thanks.
.

[Jeroen Speybroeck]

Yes.

http://ruffoi.uw.hu/korfu.pdf

[Ray Hamilton]

Thanks for the link Jeroen.

I have seen this report before and it refers to the two species present on Corfu as "The Corfu Taxon" - R.ridibunda and R.epeirotica.

These species hybridise and are hard to identify (BUTTLE1995). This author considers R. epeirotica
being the rarer of the two. MERTENS (1961a)states that R. ridibunda is very common on the island, and can be found in brackish and saline waters

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The excellent Herpetofauna.gr website lists Pelophylax ridibundus as

Distribution in Greece:East Macedonia, Thrace.

Not Corfu.
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The IUCN Red List of threatened Species shows Pelophylax kurtmuelleri as;

The name Rana balcanica is occasionally used, but this is a junior synonym of Pelophylax kurtmuelleri (Dubois and Ohler 1995). P.-A. Crochet (pers. comm.) mentions that there is no genetic divergence between Pelophylax kurtmuelleri and P. ridibundus, and so the status of this species is doubtful (Crochet and Dubois 2004).

But shows the distribution map covering Corfu.
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The Collins Field Guide (Arnold and Ovenden) 2nd Edition shows distribution maps for Rana epeirotica and Rana ridibunda which appears to exclude Corfu, whilst Rana balcanica includes Corfu.
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If I think about this for too long my brain begins to leak out of both ears. I think maybe I will be keeping an eye out for
Pelophylax epeiroticus(ridibundus) next week. Thanks (still slightly confused.)

[Ray Hamilton]

I guess the best thing to do is find the most recent classifications and go with that?

[Jeroen Speybroeck]

balcanica = kurtmuelleri = imho a subspecies of ridibundus.

Present on many, many Greek islands, including Korfu. I'm sure you will hear that this is true at your first evening overthere