Brachycephalidae Günther, 1858

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Brachycephalidae

Brachycephalidae — Günther, 1858, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1858: 344 (see entry under Anura). Frost, Grant, Faivovich, Bain, Haas, Haddad, de Sá, Channing, Wilkinson, Donnellan, Raxworthy, Campbell, Blotto, Moler, Drewes, Nussbaum, Lynch, Green, and Wheeler, 2006, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 297: 197.

Brachycephalina Günther, 1858, Arch. Naturgesch., 24: 321. Type genus: Brachycephalus Fitzinger, 1826.

Brachycephalinae — Noble, 1931, Biol. Amph.: 507. Dubois, 2005, Alytes, 23: 11.

English Names

None noted.

Distribution

Southern and central Brazil and adjacent northern Argentina; possibly into adjacent Paraguay.

Comment

McDiarmid, 1971, Sci. Bull. Nat. Hist. Mus. Los Angeles Co., 12: 1-66, and Izecksohn, 1971, Bol. Mus. Nac., Rio de Janeiro, N.S., Zool., 280: 1-12, removed Brachycephalus from Atelopodidae (the latter which McDiarmid placed in Bufonidae) and restricted the name Brachycephalidae to Brachycephalus as family of problematic relationships. Izecksohn, 1971, Bol. Mus. Nac., Rio de Janeiro, N.S., Zool., 280: 1-12, and Giaretta and Sawaya, 1998, Copeia, 1998: 987, noted that Brachycephalidae (sensu stricto) might be most closely related to Euparkerella (then in Eleutherodactylinae). Silva, Campos, and Sebben, 2007, Zootaxa, 1422: 59-68, suggested this view might be mistaken, as well as the formulation of the earlier Eleutherodactylinae and the genera that composed it, although they presented no evidence to reject the monophyly of this inclusive group. Eleutherodactylinae was considered a tribe within a paraphyletic Telmatobiinae by Lynch, 1971, Misc. Publ. Mus. Nat. Hist. Univ. Kansas, 53: 142. Subsequently considered a subfamily by Laurent, 1986, in Grassé and Delsol (eds.), Traite de Zool., 14: 418. Darst and Cannatella, 2004, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 31: 462-475, provided DNA sequence evidence of a close relationship of Brachycephalus to Eleutherodactylinae (sensu lato, now largely coextensive with Terrarana). Dubois, 2005, Alytes, 23: 4, noted that if the two are combined into a single taxon Brachycephalinae is an older name for Eleutherodactylinae. Frost, Grant, Faivovich, Bain, Haas, Haddad, de Sá, Channing, Wilkinson, Donnellan, Raxworthy, Campbell, Blotto, Moler, Drewes, Nussbaum, Lynch, Green, and Wheeler, 2006, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 297, documented that Brachycephalidae (sensu stricto) is imbedded within Eleutherodactylinae and discussed the placement of the group within anurans and the lack of evidence of monophyly for most of the included genera. See comment under Leptodactylidae. Heinicke, Duellman, and Hedges, 2007, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 104: 10092-10097, continued recognition of a paraphyletic Eleutherodactylinae in a paraphyletic "Leptodactylidae", but provided results consistent with the recognition of Brachycephalidae (sensu lato). They also provided a substantial realignment of generic boundaries based on a molecular study of many of the nominal genera. Hedges, Duellman, and Heinicke, 2008, Zootaxa, 1737: 1-182, on the basis of a larger molecular analysis, restricted the name Brachycephalidae to a monophyletic cluster of genera in southeastern Brazil and recognized Craugastoridae, Eleutherodactylidae, and Strabomantidae for the bulk of former Eleutherodactylinae, "Eleutherodactylus", and related genera. Pyron and Wiens, 2011, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 61: 543-583, in their study of Genbank sequences confirmed that Brachycephalidae is the sister taxon of Eleutherodactylidae + their Craugastoridae. Blackburn and Wake, 2011, In Zhang (ed.), Zootaxa, 3148, 3148: 39-55, discussed the changes in the application of the name Brachycephalidae.

Contained taxa

Brachycephalus Fitzinger, 1826 (20 sp.)
Ischnocnema Reinhardt and Lütken, 1862 (32 sp.)

External Links

Please note: these links will take you to external websites not affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History. We are not responsible for their content.