Ptychadenidae Dubois, 1987
Ptychadenini Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 55. Type genus: Ptychadena Boulenger, 1917.
Ptychadeninae — Dubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 316. Dubois, 2005, Alytes, 23: 17.
English Names
Grassland Frogs (Vitt and Caldwell, 2009, Herpetology, 3rd Ed.: 471).
Distribution
Subsaharan Africa.
Comment
Originally recognized as a tribe (Ptychadenini) within Raninae (largely equivalent to Ranoidia of this catalogue) by Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 55. Subsequently elevated in rank to a subfamily (Ptychadeninae) by Dubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 316, and to family by 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: 235, who considered it to be the sister taxon of a group composed of their Ceratobatrachidae, Micrixalidae, Phrynobatrachidae, Petropedetidae, Pyxicephalidae, Dicroglossidae, Mantellidae, Rhacophoridae, Nyctibatrachidae, and Ranidae. This result was corroborated by Bossuyt, Brown, Hillis, Cannatella, and Milinkovitch, 2006, Syst. Biol., 55: 583, and Wiens, Sukumaran, Pyron, and Brown, 2009, Evolution, 63: 1217-1231 (although both papers considered all of these taxon to be parts of Ranidae [sensu lato]). The monophyly of Ptychadeninae was strongly corroborated by Scott, 2005, Cladistics, 21: 526. Laurent, 1997, in Van Wyk (ed.), Proc. FitzSimons Comm. Symp.: 183-188, discussed phylogenetics of the taxonomic group (as Ptychadenini). Roelants, Gower, Wilkinson, Loader, Biju, Guillaume, Moriau, and Bossuyt, 2007, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 104: 887-892, discussed the phylogenetic placement of this taxon. Measey, Vences, Drewes, Chiari, Melo, and Bourles, 2007, J. Biogeograph., 34: 7-20, reported on phylogenetics of this taxon as part of a study of Ptychadena newtoni. Vitt and Caldwell, 2009, Herpetology, 3rd Ed.: 471-472, provided a general taxonomic account and map as part of a much more general and extensive overview of amphibian biology. Bossuyt and Roelants, 2009, in Hedges and Kumar (eds.), Timetree of Life: 357-364, considered this taxon a distinct family based on its Mesozoic origin. Wiens, Sukumaran, Pyron, and Brown, 2009, Evolution, 63: 1217-1231, found Ptychadenidae (as Ranidae, Ptychadeninae) to be the sister taxon of all other ranoids and suggested substantial structure within this unit; Pyron and Wiens, 2011, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 61: 543-583, in their study of Genbank sequences, confirmed this. Blackburn and Wake, 2011, In Zhang (ed.), Zootaxa, 3148, 3148: 39-55, briefly reviewed the taxonomic history of this taxon.
Contained taxa
- Hildebrandtia Nieden, 1907 (3 sp.)
- Lanzarana Clarke, 1982 (1 sp.)
- Ptychadena Boulenger, 1917 (49 sp.)
External Links
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- To search the NIH genetic sequence database, see GenBank
