Oreophrynella Boulenger, 1895

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Bufonidae > Genus: Oreophrynella
8 species

Oreophryne Boulenger, 1895, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Ser. 6, 15: 521. Type species: Oreophryne quelchii Boulenger, 1895, by monotypy. Junior homonym of Oreophryne Boettger, 1895.

Oreophrynella Boulenger, 1895, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Ser. 6, 16: 125. Replacement name for Oreophryne Boulenger, 1895.

English Names

Bush Toads (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 45).

Distribution

On sandstone mountains (tepuis) in south-central Venezuela and adjacent Guyana.

Comment

McDiarmid, 1971, Sci. Bull. Nat. Hist. Mus. Los Angeles Co., 12: 49, placed Oreophrynella as the sister-taxon of Atelopus + Dendrophryniscus + Melanophryniscus. Cannatella, 1986, Herpetologica, 42: 197-205, considered Oreophrynella to be the sister-taxon of Dendrophryniscus. Graybeal, 1997, Zool. J. Linn. Soc., 119: 297-338, presented a tree that suggested that Oreophrynella is most closely related to Pelophryne and Didnamipus. Señaris, Ayarzagüena, and Gorzula, 1994, Publ. Asoc. Amigos Doñana, 3: 1-37 discussed the species in Venezuela, and suggested a special relationship with Metaphryniscus and Osornophryne. Graybeal and Cannatella, 1995, Herpetologica, 51: 122, presented evidence supporting the monophyly of Oreophrynella. Barrio-Amorós, 1999 "1998", Acta Biol. Venezuelica, 18: 11-12, reported on literature and distribution for the species in Venezuela. Van Bocxlaer, Loader, Roelants, Biju, Menegon, and Bossuyt, 2010, Science, 327: 679-682, suggested on the basis of molecular evidence that Oreophrynella is phylogenetically isolated, attaching near the base of the bufonid tree. Kok, MacCulloch, Means, Roelants, Van Bocxlaer, and Bossuyt, 2012, Curr. Biol., 22: R589–R590, and Kok, MacCulloch, Means, Roelants, Van Bocxlaer, and Bossuyt, 2012, Current. Biol., Suppl. Inform., 22: 1–25, provided a molecular tree of tepui populations and noted the low branch lengths. Peloso, Faivovich, Grant, Gasparini, and Haddad, 2012, Am. Mus. Novit., 3762: 1-32, suggested on the basis of molecular evidence that Oreophrynella is the sister taxon of FrostiusKok, Ratz, MacCulloch, Lathrop, Dezfoulian, Aubret, and Means, 2018, J. Biogeograph., 45: 26–36, found Oreophrynella to the be the sister taxon of Atelopus, who also provided a molecular tree of the species of Oreophrynella and discussed its biogeography. 

Contained taxa (8 sp.):

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