Amietia Dubois, 1987

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Pyxicephalidae > Subfamily: Cacosterninae > Genus: Amietia
16 species

Amietia Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 49. Type species: Rana vertebralis Hewitt, 1927, by original designation. Proposed as a subgenus of Rana.

Afrana Dubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 334. Type species: Rana fuscigula Duméril and Bibron, 1841, by original designation. Proposed as a subgenus of Rana. Considered a genus by Visser and Channing, 1997, J. Afr. Zool., 111: 192, and by Channing, 2001, Amph. Cent. S. Afr.: 264–265. Synonymy 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: 240.

Amietia — Channing, 2001, Amph. Cent. S. Afr.: 264. Treatment as a genus.

English Names

Large-mouthed Frogs (Channing, 2001, Amph. Cent. S. Afr.: 264).

River Frogs (Channing, 2001, Amph. Cent. S. Afr.: 255 [as Afrana]; Du Preez and Carruthers, 2009, Compl. Guide Frogs S. Afr.: 394).

Distribution

Central, eastern, and southern Africa.

Comment

See comment under Rana for access to geographically-based literature that prior to the revision of 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, would have treated this taxon as part of Rana. Keys and accounts for the southern African species provided by Channing, 2001, Amph. Cent. S. Afr.: XXX, and Du Preez and Carruthers, 2009, Compl. Guide Frogs S. Afr.: 394–409. van der Meijden, Crottini, Tarrant, Turner, and Vences, 2011, Afr. J. Herpetol., 60: 1–12, suggested that Amietia is the sister taxon of Arthroleptella + Natalobatrachus as did Pyron and Wiens, 2011, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 61: 543–583. Pyron and Wiens, 2011, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 61: 543–583, excluding RAG-2, found Strongylopus grayii to be imbedded within Amietia, while van der Meijden, Crottini, Tarrant, Turner, and Vences, 2011, Afr. J. Herpetol., 60: 1–12, employing somewhat more sequence (RAG-2), found Strongylopus grayii to be well within Strongylopus. Mercurio, 2011, Amph. Malawi: 276–285, provided accounts and and an identification key for the species of Malawi. See comment under Strongylopus grayii. Channing and Baptista, 2013, Zootaxa, 3640: 501–520, discussed the species delimitation, biology, and phylogeny of the species within the taxon in southern Africa, providing a tree of (Amietia fuscigula + Amietia vandijki) + (Amietia quecketti + (Amietia poyntoni + Amietia angolensis)), although populations north of these (e.g., Ethiopia, D. R. Congo), nominally associated with Amietia angolensis, were not reported on at this time. Channing, Rödel, and Channing, 2012, Tadpoles of Africa: 317–329, provided information on comparative larval morphology. Channing, 2015, Zootaxa, 3925: 271–280, discussed the difficult taxonomic history of the species (Amietia vertebralis and Amietia hymenopus) in the Drakensberg Mountains of South Africa. Larson, Castro, Behangana, and Greenbaum, 2016, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 99: 168–181, reported on the phylogenetics and taxonomy of species in the Albertine Rift region of Africa, identifying 6 unnamed (or likely unnamed) species: 1) found in the Kibara Mountains, 1157–1428 m elevation, Katanga Province, Dem. Rep. Congo; 2) Itombwe Plateau, 1965–2848 m elevation, South Kivu, Dem. Rep. Congo; 3) eastern montane Dem. Rep. Congo, 811–2289 m elevation; 4) west and south of Itombwe Plateau in South Kivu and Katanga Provinces, 744–1324 m elevation, Dem. Rep. Congo; 5) montane glassland in the Marunga Plateau and Kibara Mountains, 1428–2037 m elevation, South Kivu Province, Dem. Rep. Congo; 6) Lendu Pleateau of the southern part of Virunga National Park, 823–2088 m elevation, Dem. Rep. Congo. Channing, Dehling, Lötters, and Ernst, 2016, Zootaxa, 4155: 1–76, provided a phylogenetic hypothesis, revised the genus, and provided accounts for all species. Channing and Rödel, 2019, Field Guide Frogs & Other Amph. Afr.: 352–359, provided brief accounts, photographs, and range maps for the species. Freilich, Anadón, Bukala, Calderon, Chakraborty, and Boissinot, 2016, BMC Evol. Biol., 16 (206): 1–19, reported on the molecular biogeography of apparently unnamed species, nominally Amietia angolensis, from both sides of the Great Rift in montane (above 2364 m elevation) Ethiopia.  

Contained taxa (16 sp.):

Amietia angolensis (Barboza du Bocage, 1866)
Amietia chapini (Noble, 1924)
Amietia delalandii (Duméril and Bibron, 1841)
Amietia desaegeri (Laurent, 1972)
Amietia fuscigula (Duméril and Bibron, 1841)
Amietia hymenopus (Boulenger, 1920)
Amietia inyangae (Poynton, 1966)
Amietia johnstoni (Günther, 1894)
Amietia moyerorum Channing, Dehling, Lötters, and Ernst, 2016
Amietia nutti (Boulenger, 1896)
Amietia poyntoni Channing and Baptista, 2013
Amietia ruwenzorica (Laurent, 1972)
Amietia tenuoplicata (Pickersgill, 2007)
Amietia vandijki (Visser and Channing, 1997)
Amietia vertebralis (Hewitt, 1927)
Amietia wittei (Angel, 1924)

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