Cardioglossa Boulenger, 1900

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Arthroleptidae > Subfamily: Arthroleptinae > Genus: Cardioglossa
18 species

Cardioglossa Boulenger, 1900, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1900: 445. Type species: Cardioglossa gracilis Boulenger, 1900, by monotypy.

English Names

Long-fingered Frogs (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 37).

Distribution

Forested areas of western and central Africa.

Comment

In Arthroleptini 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: 336. Amiet, 1982, Ann. Fac. Sci. Cameroun, 28: 117-131, presented a dendrogram of the Cameroonian species in this genus. Amiet, 1972, Biol. Gabonica, 8: 201-234, described five new species. See comment under Arthroleptis. Considered by Noble, 1922, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 46: 1-87, and Laurent, 1941 "1940", Rev. Zool. Bot. Afr., 34: 91, to be derived from a group containing Arthroleptis wahlbergi and Arthroleptis variabilis, although this is not consistent with recent findings. Amiet, 1972, Science et Nature, 14: 11-24, provided a pictorial summary of the species of Cameroon. Blackburn, 2008, Zool. J. Linn. Soc., 154: 611-630, discussed morphological diversity in the genus, noted that inclusion of Cardioglossa aureoli probably renders Cardioglossa paraphyletic, recognized five similarity groupings, and provided a key to the species. Blackburn, 2008, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 49: 806-826, subsequently transferred Cardioglossa aureoli into ArthroleptisChanning, Rödel, and Channing, 2012, Tadpoles of Africa: 93–99, reported on comparative tadpole morphology. Channing and Rödel, 2019, Field Guide Frogs & Other Amph. Afr.: 240–245, provided brief accounts, photographs, and range maps for the species. Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 415, found Cardioglossa (their exemplars being Cardioglossa occidentalis and Cardioglossa schioetzi) within their Astylosternus clade. This differs considerably from the results of Frost et al. (2006) and Portik and Blackburn, 2016, Evolution, 70: 2017–2032, who provided evidence for the more traditional arrangement under very different assumptions of analysis. Dubois et al. (2021) placed Cardioglossa (Arthroleptinae) as a synonym of Astylosternus (Astylosterninae). Pretty clearly, the change Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron (2021) recommended was premature and possibly the result of misidentified terminals (DRF). Blackburn, Nielsen, Ghose, Burger, Gonwouo, Greenbaum, Gvoždík, Hirschfeld, Kouete, Chifundera, Lawson, McLaughlin, Zassi-Boulou, and Rödel, 2021, Ichthyol. & Herpetol., 109: 728–742, revised the genus and discussed a molecular tree, biogeographical hypothesis, and provided discussion that the synonymy of Cardioglossa with Astylosternus or Arthroleptis is not supported by the preponderance of evidence. 

Contained taxa (18 sp.):

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.