Epidalea Cope, 1864

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Bufonidae > Genus: Epidalea
1 species

Calamitus Rafinesque, 1815, Analyse Nat.: 78. Type species: Bufo calamita Laurenti, 1768, by subsequent designation of Dubois and Bour, 2010, Zootaxa, 2447: 22. Unavailable nomen nudum.

Calamita Oken, 1816, Lehrb. Naturgesch., 3(2): 209. Type species: Bufo calamita Laurenti, 1768, by tautonomy. Synonymy with Bufo by Stejneger, 1904, Annu. Rep. U.S. Natl. Mus. for 1902: 570; Stejneger, 1907, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 58: 55. Unavailable name for nomenclatural purposes according to Opinion 417 (Anonymous, 1956, Opin. Declar. Internatl. Comm. Zool. Nomencl., 14: 1–42). Apparently a junior homonym of Calamita Schneider, 1799, a nomen dubium under Hylinae. Objective synonym of Epidalea Cope, 1864.

Epidalea Cope, 1864, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 16: 181. Type species: Bufo calamita Laurenti, 1768, by monotypy.

Common Names

None noted.

Distribution

As for the single species.

Comment

Suggested to be only distantly related to other Eurasian bufonids and resurrected from the synonymy of Bufo 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: 213, where it had been placed by Boulenger, 1882, Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus., Ed. 2: 281; Boulenger, 1898, Tailless Batr. Eur., 2: 212; Stejneger, 1907, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 58: 55. Stöck, Moritz, Hickerson, Frynta, Dujsebayeva, Eremchenko, Macey, Papenfuss, and Wake, 2006, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 41: 663–689, provided molecular evidence of the monophyly of Epidalea + Bufotes, although taxon sampling other than members of Epidalea and Bufotes were insufficient to be decisive. Smith and Chiszar, 2006, Herpetol. Conserv. Biol., 1: 6–8, implied that this taxon should be considered a subgenus of Bufo; see comment under Bufonidae. Van Bocxlaer, Biju, Loader, and Bossuyt, 2009, BMC Evol. Biol., 9 (e131): 1–10, and Van Bocxlaer, Loader, Roelants, Biju, Menegon, and Bossuyt, 2010, Science, 327: 679–682, considered Epidalea to be the sister taxon of Bufo, and far from Bufotes. Speybroeck, Beukema, and Crochet, 2010, Zootaxa, 2492: 6–7, and Dubois and Bour, 2010, Zootaxa, 2447: 25, regarded Epidalea and Bufotes to be junior synonyms of Bufo on the basis of plesiomorphic retention of reproductive characteristics, although this is inconsistent with the results of Pyron and Wiens, 2011, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 61: 543–583, suggested Epidalea to be the sister taxon of Leptophryne (although this is obscured by their explicit adoption of an out-dated and non-monophyletic taxonomy). Fouquette and Dubois, 2014, Checklist N.A. Amph. Rept.: 290, considered Epidalea as subgenus of Bufo, cherry-picking their citation to literature (excluding any reference to  Van Bocxlaer, Biju, Loader, and Bossuyt, 2009, BMC Evol. Biol., 9 (e131): 1–10, Van Bocxlaer, Loader, Roelants, Biju, Menegon, and Bossuyt, 2010, Science, 327: 679–682, or Pyron and Wiens, 2011, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 61: 543–583, which provided results not congruent with the story that Fouquette and Dubois wanted to tell) to avoid recognizing that treating this genus as a subgenus of Bufo also requires under current understanding of phylogeny all Old-World bufonids, such as Sabahphrynus, Nectophryne, and Ansonia to be treated as subgenera of Bufo as well. 

Contained taxa (1 sp.):

Epidalea calamita (Laurenti, 1768)

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