Brevicipitidae Bonaparte, 1850

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Search tool	Example of search string in box	What that means to the database
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	Hyl*	Will find all uses of "Hyl . . ." anywhere in a record: e.g., Hylarana, Hyla, Hylidae, Hylinae, Hylaedactyla.
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	*Hyla	Will find all uses of ". . . hyla" anywhere in a record: e.g., Hyla, Hylidae, Plectrohyla, Ptychadena hylaea, Adenomera hylaedactyla
Single word	Hyla	Will find all records that contain stand-alone uses of Hyla: e.g., Hyla, Hyla arenicolor
Strings of words without quotation marks	Lithobates pipiens	Interprets this as "Lithobates OR pipiens" so will find the union of all records that contain either "Lithobates" or "pipiens": e.g., Lithobates omiltemanus, Hylorana pipiens
Strings of word with quotation marks	"Lithobates pipiens"	Interprets this as "Lithobates AND pipiens" so will return all records that have the character string "Lithobates pipiens" anywhere within a record: e.g., all members of the Lithobates pipiens complex.
AND statement. Means that the results of the search must include both words held together by an AND	Lithobates AND pipiens	Same as "Lithobates pipiens"
OR statement. Means that the results of the search will all records that have either of the terms held together by an OR	Lithobates OR "Costa Rica"	Recovers all records that contain the word "Lithobates" or "Costa Rica": 402 records inasmuch as this will include all records for the entire amphibian fauna of Costa Rica
Combining Boolean operators within the Basic Search box (AND, OR, NOT, quotation marks)	Lithobates AND "Costa Rica" NOT forreri	Recovers only records that contain the word Lithobates AND "Costa Rica", but excludes any record that contains the word "forreri" in any part of the record: 9 records
Printable HELP file

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Brevicipitidae

35 species

Brevicipitina Bonaparte, 1850, Conspect. Syst. Herpetol. Amph.: 1 p. Type genus: Breviceps Merrem, 1820. Priority over Engystomidae Bonaparte, 1850, by First Revisor action of Dubois, 1983, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 52: 270-276.

Engystomidae Bonaparte, 1850, Conspect. Syst. Herpetol. Amph.: 1 p. Type genus: Engystoma Fitzinger, 1826. Synonymy by Stejneger, 1910, Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, 23: 165; Dubois, 1984, Mem. Mus. Natl. Hist. Nat. Paris, A—Zool., 131: 40.

Systomata Stannius, 1856, Handb. Zootomie Wiebelthiere, 2: 5. Type genus: Systoma Wagler, 1830. Objective synonym of Brevicipitidae through the type species.

Engystomatidae — Günther, 1858, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1858: 346.

Brevicipitidae — Cope, 1867, J. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, Ser. 2, 6: 190.

Engystomitidae — Hoffmann, 1878, in Bronn (ed.), Die Klassen und Ordnungen des Thier-Reichs, 6(2): 617.

Engystomata — Peters, 1882, Naturwiss. Reise Mossambique, Zool. 3: 172.

Engystomatida — Knauer, 1878, Naturgesch. Lurche: 108.

Engystomatinae — Gadow, 1901, Amphibia and Reptiles: 139.

Brevicipitinae — Stejneger, 1910, Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, 23: 167; Van Kampen, 1923, Amph. Indo-Austral. Arch.: x, 95.

Engistomatidae — Methuen and Hewitt, 1913, Ann. Transvaal Mus., 4: 58.

Engistomatinae — Methuen and Hewitt, 1913, Ann. Transvaal Mus., 4: 58.

Brevicipetidae — Romer, 1933, Vert. Paleontol.: 437.

Brevicepitidae — Miranda-Ribeiro, 1937, O Campo, 1937: 56.

Brevicipinae — Lynch, 1971, Misc. Publ. Mus. Nat. Hist. Univ. Kansas, 53: 203.

Brevicepinae — Bogart and Tandy, 1981, Monit. Zool. Ital., N.S., Suppl., 15: 59.

Brevicipitidae — Dubois, 2005, Alytes, 23: 13.

Breviciptidae — Du Preez and Carruthers, 2009, Compl. Guide Frogs S. Afr.: 102. Incorrect subsequent spelling.

English Names

Rain Frogs (Vitt and Caldwell, 2009, Herpetology, 3rd Ed.: 468).

Distribution

Sub-saharan East and Southern Africa.

Comment

Blommers-Schlösser, 1993, Ethol. Ecol. Evol., 5: 199-218, suggested a close relationship between Hemisus (Hemisotidae) and Breviceps (Brevicipitinae, Microhylidae, at the time), but this was doubted by Channing, 1995, J. Herpetol. Assoc. Afr., 44: 55-57. van der Meijden, Vences, and Meyer, 2004, Proc. R. Soc. London, B—Suppl. Biol. Lett., 271: S378-S381, and van der Meijden, Vences, Hoegg, and Meyer, 2005, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 37, presented molecular evidence of a close relationship of Hemisotidae and Brevicipitinae (then in Microhylidae), with both more closely related to arthroleptids and hyperoliids than to microhylids. Loader, Gower, Howell, Doggart, Rödel, de Sá, Cohen, and Wilkinson, 2004, Organisms Divers. Evol., 4: 227-235, on the basis of mtDNA evidence suggested a phylogeny of Breviceps (Spelaeophryne + (Callulina + Probreviceps)), but because they examined only Breviceps mossambicus they did not document the monophyly of Breviceps. They also could not support with confidence that Hemisus is the closest relative of brevicipitines, as suggested by Blommers-Schlösser, 1993, Ethol. Ecol. Evol., 5: 199-208. Dubois, 2005, Alytes, 23: 13, suggested to expand the content of Brevicipitidae to include Arthroleptinae, Astylosterninae Hemisotinae, Hyperoliinae, and Leptopelinae. 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: 231, discussed the taxonomic history, confirmed Brevicipitidae as the sister taxon of Hemisotidae, and retained the traditional content of the taxon. Pyron and Wiens, 2011, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 61: 543-583, in their study of Genbank sequences confirmed the placement of Brevicipitidae as the sister taxon of Hemisotidae. Blackburn and Wake, 2011, In Zhang (ed.), Zootaxa, 3148: 39-55, briefly discussed the nomenclatural and taxonomic history of this group. Vitt and Caldwell, 2013, Herpetology, 4th Ed., provided a summary of life history, diagnosis, and taxonomy.

Contained taxa (35 sp.):

Balebreviceps Largen and Drewes, 1989 (1 sp.)

Breviceps Merrem, 1820 (18 sp.)

Callulina Nieden, 1911 (9 sp.)

Probreviceps Parker, 1931 (6 sp.)

Spelaeophryne Ahl, 1924 (1 sp.)

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