to the notice of scientists 50 years earlier. R. rhodopus and R. htunwini Often, R. rhodopus (described in 1960) is considered a junior synonym of the present species. However, when proposing this synonymy in 1999, neither the holotypes nor verified specimen from the type locality were examined. In fact, the alleged specimens of R. bipunctatus were from localities where that species is not known to occur. When the appropriate comparisons were finally done almost 10 years later, it turned out the R. rhodopus actually refers to the frogs described as R. namdaphaensis in 1985, which therefore is properly known by the older name R. rhodopus. This confusion has had further consequences. In 2005, a moss frog similar to R. rhodopus – then known as R. bipunctatus and R. namdaphaensis – was described as Htun Win's tree frog (Rhacophorus htunwini). But the describers believed that the taxon R. rhodopus was a junior synonym of R. bipunctatus; therefore, they compared the new species only with misidentified R. rhodopus, but not with the actual R. bipunctatus. That was still fortuitous, however, as they did not compare their "new" species to frogs assigned to the taxon R. namdaphaensis (as they might have wanted to, given the similarities and close geographic proximity). In any case, this situation was resolved in 2007, when the differences between R. htunwini and the original R. bipunctatus were found to be too slight and varied too much between individuals to consider the former anything but a junior synonym of the latter. Thus, the failure to compare R. rhodopus with the original type specimens of R. bipunctatus led to the long-known species being described once again under a new name, more than 130 years after it first became known to science. There are still a few doubts regarding the taxonomy of all these frogs, given they look quite similar and are partly sympatric. Ancient DNA sequence analyses of the original type specimens would be necessary to resolve the remaining questions. Notes References (1927): Zur Systematik der asiatischen Arten der Froschgattung Rhacophorus ["Regarding the systematics of the Asian species of the frog genus Rhacophorus"]. Sitzungsberichte der Gesellschaft naturforschender Freunde Berlin 15: 35–47. (1871): A list of the reptilian accession to the Indian Museum, Calcutta, from 1865 to 1870, with a description of some new species. J. Asiatic Soc. Bengal 40 Part 11(1): 12–39. (2007): Systematics of the genus Rhacophorus (Amphibia, Anura): identity