Phyllomedusinae Günther, 1858

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Hylidae > Subfamily: Phyllomedusinae

Phyllomedusidae Günther, 1858, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1858: 346. Type genus: Phyllomedusa Wagler, 1830.

Phyllomedusinae — Miranda-Ribeiro, 1926, Arq. Mus. Nac., Rio de Janeiro, 27: 64.

Pithecopinae Lutz, 1969, Acta Zool. Lilloana, 24: 274. Type genus: Pithecopus Cope, 1866. Synonymy by implication of Bokermann, 1966, Lista Anot. Local. Tipo Anf. Brasil.: 83, and Duellman, 1968, Univ. Kansas Publ. Mus. Nat. Hist., 18: 6, treating Pithecopus as a synonym of Phyllomedusa.

Phyllomedusidae — Bossuyt and Roelants, 2009, in Hedges and Kumar (eds.), Timetree of Life: 359.

English Names

None noted.

Distribution

Tropical Mexico to Argentina.

Comment

Frogs referred to this subfamily possess distinctive morphological, biochemical, behavioral, and reproductive features ( Duellman, 1968, Univ. Kansas Publ. Mus. Nat. Hist., 18: 1-10). Bagnara and Ferris, 1973, J. Exp. Biol., 190: 367-372, suggested that similar melanosomes in some Phyllomedusa and some Litoria might be indicative of a close relationship between Phyllomedusinae and Pelodryadinae. The immunological evidence of Maxson, 1976, Experientia, 32: 1149-1150, did not refute such a relationship, but suggested that the divergence was not recent. Osteological and myological evidence of Tyler and Davies, 1978, Herpetologica, 34: 219-224, does not refute such a hypothesized relationship (D.C. Cannatella in Frost, 1985, Amph. Species World: 197). Savage, 2002, Amph. Rept. Costa Rica: 277-288, provided a key to and accounts for the species of Costa Rica. Faivovich, Haddad, Garcia, Frost, Campbell, and Wheeler, 2005, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 294: 111-118, discussed the generic taxonomy of Phyllomedusinae and demonstrated a sister taxon relationship with Pelodryadinae. Bossuyt and Roelants, 2009, in Hedges and Kumar (eds.), Timetree of Life: 357-364, regarded this taxon as a family, Phyllomedusidae, based on its antiquity of divergence from Pelodryadidae and Hylidae. Faivovich, Haddad, Baêta, Jungfer, Álvares, Brandão, Sheil, Barrientos, Barrio-Amorós, Cruz, and Wheeler, 2010, Cladistics, 26: 227-261, reported on the phylogenetics of the group and provided a revision. Pyron and Wiens, 2011, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 61: 543-583, in their study of Genbank sequences, confirmed the results of Faivovich et al., 2010, but retained a paraphyletic Hylomantis rather than accepting the synonymy of Hylomantis and Pachymedusa with Agalychnis.

Contained taxa

Agalychnis Cope, 1864 (14 sp.)
Cruziohyla Faivovich, Haddad, Garcia, Frost, Campbell, and Wheeler, 2005 (2 sp.)
Phasmahyla Cruz, 1991 (7 sp.)
Phrynomedusa Miranda-Ribeiro, 1923 (5 sp.)
Phyllomedusa Wagler, 1830 (30 sp.)

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