or tropical high-altitude shrubland, intermittent rivers, freshwater marshes, intermittent freshwater marshes, plantations and rural gardens. It is known from altitudes of several hundreds of meters ASL to more than 2,000 meters ASL; it is unclear whether this species is ever found in the lowlands. The IUCN classified R. bipunctatus as a Species of Least Concern in 2004. However, they include R. rhodopus under the name. It is not known whether the true R. bipunctatus occurs across the whole of Southeast Asia like R. rhodopus; the available data indicate it is only known with certainty from a rather restricted area in the hills and mountains of the India-China-Myanmar border region, but the status of the similar frogs from Pahang in Malaysia needs to be determined. Therefore, it is probably most appropriate to consider this frog a Data Deficient species. Indeed, R. htunwini – a junior synonym of R. bipunctatus as it seems – was in fact evaluated as Data Deficient by the IUCN in 2006 for precisely these reasons. Taxonomy This frog has a highly convoluted taxonomy, even by the standards of the taxonomically confusing genus Rhacophorus. Believed at its discovery in 1870 to represent a population of the black-webbed tree frog (Rhacophorus reinwardtii), it was first described in 1871 as R. maculatus by John Anderson. His five syntypes, from the Khasi Hills in India, were placed in the ZSI collection, with the numbers 2753, 2754, 2755, 2756, and 10291; seven other Khasi Hills specimens collected by Thomas C. Jerdon were deposited in the NMH and are also considered part of the syntypical series because they were referred to in Anderson's description. The ZSI specimens might subsequently have become lost; NMH specimen 1872.4.17.127, collected by Jerdon in 1870, was designated a lectotype in 2007. Multiple homonyms However, Polypedates maculatus, originally described by John E. Gray as Hyla maculata some decades earlier was known as Rhacophorus maculatus in the late 19th century. Thus it was a senior homonym, preoccupying Anderson's name. This was soon noticed and in 1882, George A. Boulenger proposed R. bimaculatus as a new name for Anderson's frogs. But in 1927, Ernst Ahl realized the frog described by Wilhelm Peters as Leptomantis bimaculata in 1867 was also a member of Rhacophorus and thus Boulenger's replacement name was also preoccupied. Ahl solved the issue by establishing the currently valid name, Rhacophorus bipunctatus, for the frog species that had first come