Colored Atlas of Chinese Amphibians and Their Distributions

 The illustrated book consists of two parts. Part one provides a general introduction of natural environment conditions, species diversity and distribution of amphibians, and ecological types of amphibians of China. Part two focuses on the introduction of each species of Chinese amphibians, consisting of three sections, description in characters, colorful illustration and geographical distribution map of all the known amphibians in China. The description of each species includes its Chinese name, Latin name, English name, morphological characteristics (of male and female adults, tadpoles and eggs), biological data, population status, and geographical distribution. The protected grades of species are decided on the base of the “Species List of State Key Protected Wildlife of China ’’ (1988), the endangered status is provided according to the Threatened Amphibians of the Word (2008), and China Species Red List, Vol.1, 2004 and Vol. 2, 2009.Color photos are mainly used to illustrate the morphological characteristics of each species, including its dorsal body ,ventral body, color changes, tadpole, egg clutch, ecological environment, and distribution map.   

This book contains about 3 480 color photos and drawings, most of which were provided by the authors and small part of them are cited from literatures. The tadpole’s developmental stages follow Gosner’s method (1960), the “?” after distribution locality in test means that the locality needs further determination. In addition, references, index of Chinese names, index of Latin name’s index of English names are listed at the end of this book. This book, with colorful pictures and excellent tests, presents animals with varied postures, and is the up-to-today summary of amphibian research in China. It is not only helpful for readers to understand the amphibian species of China, to further explore amphibian resources of China, and promote studies on systematics and phylogeny, but also significant in many aspects, such as deciding the rare and endangered species, making protection measures for them, and sustainably utilizing and reasonably raising economic amphibians of China.

  This illustrated book was organized by the Chengdu Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Funded by the National Publishing Funds, the World Wild Fund for Nature (WWF), and the Chengdu Di’ao Pharmaceutical Group, and supported by the Aquatic Wild Animal and Plant Protection Department of Ministry of Agriculture of China, Kadoorie  Farm and Botanic Garden in Hong Kong, Kunming Institute of Zoology(CAS), and Hainan Normal University. During its preparing and writing process, we received great help and support from colleagues of Chengdu Institute of Biology and many scholars in China and abroad, including providing new photos, or sending literature, or suggestions for revision. Thus, this book is a collection of the achievements resulted from all the contributors. Here, I would like to express my sincere thanks to them all and related publishing houses of cited publications.