Hemisotidae Cope, 1867
Hemisidae Cope, 1867, J. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, Ser. 2, 6: 198. Type genus: Hemisus Günther, 1859 "1858".
Hemisina — Mivart, 1869, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1869: 288. Explicit subfamily.
Hemisotina — Günther, 1870, Zool. Rec., 6: 119. Justified emendation.
Hemisiinae — Miranda-Ribeiro, 1926, Arq. Mus. Nac., Rio de Janeiro, 27: 19.
Hemisinae — Noble, 1931, Biol. Amph.: 540.
Hemisotidae — Frost and Savage, 1987, J. Herpetol. Assoc. Afr., 33: 24.
Hemisotoidae — Dubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 309. Epifamily.
English Names
Shovelnosed Frogs (Ananjeva, Borkin, Darevsky, and Orlov, 1988, Dict. Amph. Rept. Five Languages: 51).
Shovelsnouted Frogs (Ananjeva, Borkin, Darevsky, and Orlov, 1988, Dict. Amph. Rept. Five Languages: 51).
Shovelnose Frogs (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 51).
Shovel-nosed Frogs (Vitt and Caldwell, 2009, Herpetology, 3rd Ed.: 468).
Snout-burrowers (Channing, 2001, Amph. Cent. S. Afr.: v).
Distribution
Africa south of the Sahara.
Comment
Lynch, 1973, in Vial (ed.), Evol. Biol. Anurans: 133-210, regarded Hemisotidae (as Hemisinae of Ranidae) as forming an unresolved polytomy with Hyperoliidae and Ranidae (in the sense of including the Arthroleptidae of this list). Haas, 2003, Cladistics, 19: 23-89, suggested on the basis of larval morphology that Hemisotidae is the sister-taxon of Hyperoliidae. (Haas did not study Brevicipitidae.) Laurent, 1980 "1979", Bull. Soc. Zool. France, 104: 417, raised the Linnaean rank of this taxon from subfamilial status within his Hyperoliidae (from within the Ranidae of other authors) to familial status. See discussion under Arthroleptidae. Blommers-Schlösser, 1993, Ethol. Ecol. Evol., 5: 199-218, suggested a close relationship of Hemisus and Breviceps, but this was considered premature by Channing, 1995, J. Herpetol. Assoc. Afr., 44: 55-57. Emerson, Richards, Drewes, and Kjer, 2000, Herpetologica, 56: 209-230, suggested that Hemisus was phylogenetically within Microhylidae. Van der Meijden, Vences, and Meyer, 2004, Proc. R. Soc. London, B—Suppl. Biol. Lett., 271: S378-S381, presented molecular evidence of a close relationship of Hemisotidae and Brevicipitinae (Microhylidae). 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, suggested that Hemisotidae is the sister taxon of Brevicipitidae, and together the sister taxon of Hyperoliidae and Arthroleptidae. Dubois, 2005, Alytes, 23: 13, arbitrarily considered Hemisotidae to be one of six subfamilies in an enlarged Brevicipitidae. Vitt and Caldwell, 2009, Herpetology, 3rd Ed.: 468-470, provided a general taxonomic account and map as part of a much more general and extensive overview of amphibian biology. Pyron and Wiens, 2011, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 61: 543-583, in their study of Genbank sequences confirmed the arrangement of Breviceps + (Callulina + (Spelaeophryne + Probreviceps)); like authors before them they did not have sequences of Balebreviceps. Blackburn and Wake, 2011, In Zhang (ed.), Zootaxa, 3148, 3148: 39-55, discussed briefly the taxonomic history of the group.
Contained taxa
External Links
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