Strongylopus Tschudi, 1838

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Pyxicephalidae > Subfamily: Cacosterninae > Genus: Strongylopus
10 species

Strongylopus Tschudi, 1838, Classif. Batr.: 38. Type species: Rana fasciata Smith, 1849, by subsequent designation of Opinion 1920 (Anonymous, 1999, Bull. Zool. Nomencl., 56: 94-95). Considered a genus by Channing, 1979, Ann. Natal Mus., 23: 797-831, subsequently considered a subgenus of Rana by Dubois, 1981, Monit. Zool. Ital., N.S., Suppl., 15: 233; Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 50; and Dubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 334. Treated as a genus by Channing, 2001, Amph. Cent. S. Afr.: 351.

English Names

Stream Frogs (Channing, 2001, Amph. Cent. S. Afr.: 351; Channing and Howell, 2006, Amph. E. Afr.: 324; Du Preez and Carruthers, 2009, Compl. Guide Frogs S. Afr.: 418).

Distribution

Southwestern South Africa north and east to southern Tanzania, Namibia.

Comment

Channing, 2001, Amph. Cent. S. Afr.: 351-363, and Du Preez and Carruthers, 2009, Compl. Guide Frogs S. Afr.: 418-431, provided keys to the species and accounts. 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, placed by Dubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 334, in his Section Strongylopus, subgenus Strongylopus of Rana. Pyron and Wiens, 2011, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 61: 543-583, in their study of Genbank sequences, provided an estimate of phylogenetic position and organization, suggesting polyphyly of Strongylopus, with one group (exemplars Strongylopus bonaespei and Strongylopus fasciatus) sitting as the sister taxon of a taxon composed of Poyntonia, Microbatrachella, and Cacosternum, and Strongylopus grayii imbedded within Amietia. This result needs to be examined very carefully. In an earlier effort, and using only the 12S and 16S mtDNA sequences from 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, Wiens, Sukumaran, Pyron, and Brown, 2009, Evolution, 63: 1217-1231, recovered Strongylopus grayii within Strongylopus. The evidentiary difference between the 2009 effort and the effort by Pyron and Wiens, 2011, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 61, is that rhodopsin from Frost was added (with the same voucher as for the 12S and 16S mitochondrial loci) and sequences for RAG-1 and tyrosinase, according to Genbank, from Bossuyt, Brown, Hillis, Cannatella, and Milinkovitch, 2006, Syst. Biol., 55: 579-594. However, Strongylopus grayii was not included in the published version of Bossuyt et al., 2006, implying the possibility that identification was suspect. Bittencourt-Silva, Conradie, Siu-Ting, Tolley, Channing, Cunningham, Farooq, Menegon, and Loader, 2016, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol.: 89–102, did not find Strongylopus to be monophyletic, Strongylopus grayii being closer to Amietia than to other Strongylopus. Channing, Dehling, Lötters, and Ernst, 2016, Zootaxa, 4155: 1–76, showed that the apparent polyphyly was due to the use of an Amietia sequence misidentified as Strongylopus grayii. Channing, Rödel, and Channing, 2012, Tadpoles of Africa: 348–356, provided information on comparative larval morphology.

Contained taxa (10 sp.):

Strongylopus bonaespei (Dubois, 1981)
Strongylopus fasciatus (Smith, 1849)
Strongylopus fuelleborni (Nieden, 1911)
Strongylopus grayii (Smith, 1849)
Strongylopus kilimanjaro Clarke and Poynton, 2005
Strongylopus kitumbeine Channing and Davenport, 2002
Strongylopus merumontanus (Lönnberg, 1910)
Strongylopus rhodesianus (Hewitt, 1933)
Strongylopus springbokensis Channing, 1986
Strongylopus wageri (Wager, 1961)

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