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
	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

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

"Elachistocleis ovalis" (Schneider, 1799)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Microhylidae > Subfamily: Gastrophryninae > Genus: Elachistocleis > Species: "Elachistocleis ovalis"

Rana ovalis Schneider, 1799, Hist. Amph. Nat.: 131. Type(s): "Musei Ducalis Brunovicensis", "Museo Barbyensi", "Gronovius Musei" and frogs illustrated by Gronovius, 1763, Zoophyl. Gronov.: no. 65, and Seba, 1734, Locuplet. Rer. Nat. Thesaur. Descript. Icon. Exp. Univ. Phys. Hist., 2: Pl. 37, fig. 3, by original designation; Daudin, 1802 "An. XI", Hist. Nat. Rain. Gren. Crap., Quarto: 92, and Daudin, 1803 "An. XI", Hist. Nat. Gen. Part. Rept., 8: 187, reported the holotype to be in the collection of the "duc de Brunswick", the current status of this specimen not known. Type locality: Not stated. See discussion by Lavilla, Vaira, and Ferrari, 2003, Amphibia-Reptilia, 24: 269–284.

Bufo ovalis — Daudin, 1802 "An. XI", Hist. Nat. Rain. Gren. Crap., Quarto: 92.

Engystoma ovalis — Fitzinger, 1826, Neue Class. Rept.: 65; Günther, 1859 "1858", Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus.: 51. (Disagreement in gender.)

Dactylethra ovalis — Cuvier, 1829, Regne Animal., Ed. 2, 2: 112, by implication (see Cuvier, 1831, Animal Kingdom (M'Murtrie), 2: 84).

Microps ovalis — Wagler, 1830, Nat. Syst. Amph.: 200.

Engystoma ovale — Hensel, 1867, Arch. Naturgesch., 33: 140; Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 216.

Microps unicolor Wagler, 1828, Isis von Oken, 21: 744. Holotype: RMNH. Type locality: "unbekannt" (= unknown). Reported by XXX as a substitute name for Rana ovalis Schneider, 1799, by XXX, but this is incorrect. Synonymy by Wagler, 1830, Nat. Syst. Amph.: 200; Tschudi, 1838, Classif. Batr.: 86; Duméril and Bibron, 1841, Erp. Gen., 6: 741.

Stenocephalus microps Tschudi, 1838, Classif. Batr.: 86. Type(s): RMNH. Type locality: not designated. Possibly a substitute name for Rana ovalis Schneider, 1799, and Microps unicolor Wagler, 1828. Synonymy by Tschudi, 1838, Classif. Batr.: 86; Duméril and Bibron, 1841, Erp. Gen., 6: 741.

Engystoma microps — Duméril and Bibron, 1841, Erp. Gen., 6: 744; Miranda-Ribeiro, 1920, Rev. Mus. Paulista, São Paulo, 12: 282.

Gastrophryne microps — Stejneger, 1910, Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, 23: 166.

Synapturanus microps — Bokermann, 1966, Lista Anot. Local. Tipo Anf. Brasil.: 38.

Engystoma ovale var. puncticulatum Steindachner, 1902, Denkschr. Akad. Wiss. Wien, Math. Naturwiss. Kl., 72: 110. Holotype: Not located; not in ZSM according to Glaw and Franzen, 2006, Spixiana, München, 29: 183, and not noted in recent NHMW type lists. Type locality: "Bodega Central am Rio Magdalena", Colombia. See comments by Glaw and Franzen, 2006, Spixiana, München, 29: 183. Description does not appear in Steindachner, 1901, Anz. Akad. Wiss. Wien, Math. Naturwiss. Kl., 38: 194, contrary to other authors.

Gastrophryne ovalis — Stejneger, 1910, Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, 23: 166.

Engystoma ovalis — Nieden, 1926, Das Tierreich, 49: 66.

Elachistocleis ovale ovale — Parker, 1927, Occas. Pap. Mus. Zool. Univ. Michigan, 187: 4.

Elachistocleis ovale — Mertens, 1930, Folia Zool. Hydrobiol., Riga, 1: 163.

English Names

Oval Frog (Shaw, 1802, Gen. Zool., 3(1): 111).

Common Oval Frog (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 89).

Slate Burrowing Frog (Eterovick and Sazima, 2004, Anf. Serra do Cipó: 115).

Northern Oval Frog (Hedges, Powell, Henderson, Hanson, and Murphy, 2019, Caribb. Herpetol., 67: 15).

Distribution

Nominally, Elachistocleis ovalis is a nomen inquirenda (see comment), not applied to a biological population. Not included as a nomen inquirenda in this database due to the limitations of the database structure and the amount of associated literature, which tends to get lost when applied to these kinds of names (DRF).

Comment

Literature prior to Caramaschi, 2010, Bol. Mus. Nac., Rio de Janeiro, N.S., Zool., 527: 1–30, should be used with great caution. Literature below is in the process of being sorted (if possible) to appropriate species accounts as time is available (DRF).

See comments under Elachistocleis, Elachistocleis nigrogularis, and Elachistocleis bicolor.

Advertisement call described by De la Riva, Márquez, and Bosch, 1996, Am. Midl. Nat., 136: 418–422.

Lescure and Marty, 2000, Collect. Patrimoines Nat., Paris, 45: 272–273, provided a photo and brief account for French Guiana.

Köhler, 2000, Bonn. Zool. Monogr., 48: 143–145, provided a brief account.

Gorzula and Señaris, 1999 "1998", Scient. Guaianae, 8: 82–83, commented on geographic variation and difficulty sorting species in Venezuela.

Lavilla, Vaira, and Ferrari, 2003, Amphibia-Reptilia, 24: 278–279, regarded this nominal form to cover a complex of species.

Eterovick and Sazima, 2004, Anf. Serra do Cipó: 115–116, provided a photograph and brief account (as Elachistocleis cf ovalis).

Canelas and Bertoluci, 2007, Iheringia, Zool., 97: 21–26, provided a record for the Serra do Caraça, southern end of the Serra do Espinhaço, Minas Gerais, Brazil.

Brusquetti and Lavilla, 2006, Cuad. Herpetol., 20: 25, suggested that this species is only found north of the Amazon River and that records south of there are referable to Elachistocleis bicolor.

See comments under Elachistocleis skotogaster and Elachistocleis surinamensis.

Silva, Santos, Alves, Sousa, and Annunziata, 2010, Sitientibus, Ser. Cienc. Biol., 7: 334–340, provided records for Piauí, Brazil.

Caramaschi, 2010, Bol. Mus. Nac., Rio de Janeiro, N.S., Zool., 527: 1–30, considered the name Rana ovalis to be a nomen inquirenda and applied alternative names to all populations from Brazil; the status of populations outside of Brazil remains unsettled, although the naming of Elachistocleis tinagua and Elachistocleis sikuani from Colombia has started to resolve the issue.

Köhler, 2011, Amph. Cent. Am.: 285, provided a brief summary of natural history for Elachistocleis "ovalis".

See Barrio-Amorós, Rojas-Runjaic, and Señaris, 2019, Amph. Rept. Conserv., 13 (1: e180): 103, for comments on range and literature.

Jowers, Othman, Borzée, Rivas-Fuenmayor, Sánchez-Ramírez, Auguste, Downie, Read, and Murphy, 2021, Organisms Divers. Evol., 21: 189–206, addressed the problem that is Elachistocleis "ovalis", and provided a polygon range map of the ranges of the species formerly confused with Elachistocleis ovalis.

External links:

Please note: these links will take you to external websites not affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History. We are not responsible for their content.

For access to general information see Wikipedia
For additional sources of general information from other websites search Google
For access to relevant technical literature search Google Scholar
For images search CalPhoto Images and Google Images
To search the NIH genetic sequence database, see GenBank
For additional information see AmphibiaWeb report
For information on conservation status and distribution see the IUCN Redlist
For information on distribution, habitat, and conservation see the Map of Life
For related information on conservation and images as well as observations see iNaturalist
For access to available specimen data for this species, from over 350 scientific collections, go to Vertnet.