Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalofstra33341900roya).pdf/404

  Notes on the Flying Frog Rhacophorus nigropalmatus.

Mr. A. D. Machado, one of the most constant benefactors to the Raffles Museum, presented last year a specimen of a Flying Frog from Pahang which I have only recently been able to identify as Rhacophorus nigropalmatus. As only two specimens of this species have so far been recorded, the one obtained by Dr. Charles Lose from the Akan River, Borneo (sec G. A. Boulenger, A. M. N. H. (6), XVI, p. 170), and the other obtained by Mr. L. Wray in the Piah Valley, Upper Perak (see S. S. Flower, P. Z. S., 1899, p. 899), this third specimen appears to deserve a special note.

Mr. Machado writes: I caught this specimen in an old prospecting pit one morning (January 1899) at Kuala Merbao in Ulu Pahang. He had evidently fallen into it and could not get out. I found him swimming about in the water. The pit was about twelve feet deep."

The specimen shows in external characters no difference from those described by Boulenger and Flower, except slightly as regards its cutaneous fringes and coloration. The fringes of the arm seem to be more developed than in either of the other two specimens: there is one not only along the outer edge of the fore-arm continued right to the tip of the fifth finger, but also a smaller triangular one along the inner side, beginning at the proximal end of the upper arm and ending at the distal end of the fore-arm, being widest at the elbow joint. There is a semilunar flap on the tibio-tarsal articulation, as in the other specimens, and, after a break, a narrow fringe along the outer side of the tarsus to the tip of the fifth toe. A very much smaller fringe runs along the first toe. A flap of skin above the cloaca is scarcely noticeable.