Hyla Laurenti, 1768

English Names

True Tree Toads (Fowler, 1907, Annu. Rep. N.J. State Mus. for 1906: 104).

Common Treefrogs (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 53).

Treefrogs (Crother, Boundy, Campbell, de Queiroz, Frost, Highton, Iverson, Meylan, Reeder, Seidel, Sites, Taggart, Tilley, and Wake, 2001 "2000", Herpetol. Circ., 29: 9).

Holarctic Treefrogs (Frost, McDiarmid, and Mendelson, 2008, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 37: 5; Frost, McDiarmid, Mendelson, and Green, 2012, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 39: 15; Frost, Lemmon, McDiarmid, and Mendelson, 2017, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 43: 11).

Distribution

Eurasia south of the Baltic Sea eastward with a hiatus between eastern Russia and the Oriental Region from northeastern India to Vietnam, China, and Hainan Island; Sardinia and Corsica, extreme north Africa from Morocco to Tunisia; northeastern Egypt, Turkey, and southern Arabian Peninsula.

Comment

Until partitioned by Faivovich, Haddad, Garcia, Frost, Campbell, and Wheeler, 2005, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 294, "Hyla" was considered to be a paraphyletic group that included most hylines. Faivovich, Haddad, Garcia, Frost, Campbell, and Wheeler, 2005, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 294: 102, recognized four species groups identified in the species accounts. The content of the Hyla arborea group includes some species which were retained by Faivovich, Haddad, Garcia, Frost, Campbell, and Wheeler, 2005, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 294: 102, in that group because no evidence excluded them; nevertheless, all members of the Hyla arborea group in China and Far East Russia are suspected on geographic grounds to be members of the Hyla eximia group, as originally suggested by Kuramoto, 1980, Copeia, 1980: 100–108. Zhang, 2002, Sichuan J. Zool., 21: 198–199, provided a key to the species of China. Laurenti, 1768, Spec. Med. Exhib. Synops. Rept.: 32, provided the etymology of the name that documents its masculine gender. Stöck, Dubey, Klütsch, Litvinchuk, Scheidt, and Perrin, 2008, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 49: 1019–1024, reported on the molecular phylogenetics of members of the Hyla arborea group of Europe and North Africa. Fei, Hu, Ye, and Huang, 2009, Fauna Sinica, Amph. 2: 590–653, provided a key, accounts, and spot maps of the Chinese taxa. Hua, Fu, Li, Nieto-Montes de Oca, and Wiens, 2009, Herpetologica, 65: 246–259, discussed molecular phylogeny of Hyla. Gvoždík, Moravec, Klütsch, and Kotlík, 2010, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 55: 1146–58, reported on the molecular phylogenetics of the species of the Levant and Arabia. Powell, Collins, and Hooper, 2011, Key Herpetofauna U.S. & Canada, 2nd Ed.: 49–51, provided a key to the species of the United States and Canada. Stöck, Dufresnes, Litvinchuk, Lymberakis, Biollay, Berroneau, Borzée, Ghali, Ogielska, and Perrin, 2012, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 65: 1–9, reported on the molecular phylogenetics and biogeography of the Hyla arborea group. Fouquette and Dubois, 2014, Checklist N.A. Amph. Rept.: 331, on the basis of the tree and species group delimitations of Hua, Fu, Li, Nieto-Montes de Oca, and Wiens, 2009, Herpetologica, 65: 246–259, suggested the subgeneric name Hyla for the Hyla arborea group, Epedaphus for the Hyla cinerea group, and Dryophytes for the Hyla versicolor and Hyla eximia groups. Bryson, Smith, Nieto-Montes de Oca, García-Vázquez, and Riddle, 2014, Zool. J. Linn. Soc., 172: 103–116, reported on the history of mtDNA introgression among members of the Hyla eximia group and noted an unnamed species in the Balsas Basin in southern Mexico. Gvoždík, Canestrelli, García-París, Moravec, Nascetti, Recuero, Teixeira, and Kotlík, 2015, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 83: 143–155, reported on molecular phylogenetics of the members of the Hyla arborea group in Europe. Li, Wang, Nian, Litvinchuk, Wang, Li, Rao, and Klaus, 2015, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 87: 80–90, provided a molecular study of 4 mtDNA and 1 nuDNA loci for 30 species that suggested that allowed definition of the Hyla chinensis group, separate from the Hyla arborea group and provided a time-tree that confirms the idea that the Hyla japonica group colonized Asia by way of the Bering Land bridge from North America. Redelimited by Duellman, Marion, and Hedges, 2016, Zootaxa, 4104: 22, who recognized Dryophytes, not diagnosable on any morphological characteristics, for a subset of former Hyla. Dufresnes, Berroneau, Dubey, Litvinchuk, and Perrin, 2020, Sci. Rep. (Nature, London), 10 (5502): 1–10, reported on species boundaries among the species of  Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. Yan, Pan, Wu, Kang, Ali, Zhou, Li, Wu, and Zhang, 2020, Frontiers Ecol. Evol., 8 (234): 1–13, recognized 6 species in the Hyla chinensis group, which requires the partition of nominal Hyla annectans; although these authors wrote that there were (at least) 6 lineages under this name, they did not take the nomenclatural step of making all the new combinations required of this revision. Martínez-Gil, Martínez-Freiría, Perera, Enriquez-Urzelai, Martínez-Solano, Velo-Antón, and Kaliontzopoulou, 2022, Biol. J. Linn. Soc., 135: 462–477, examined, within a phylogenetic framework, phenotypic and climatic diversity of the circum-Mediterranean species (Hyla arborea, Hyla carthaginiensis, felixarabica, Hyla intermedia, Hyla meridionalis, Hyla molleri, Hyla orientalis, Hyla perrini, Hyla sarda, and Hyla savaignyi).  

Contained taxa (16 sp.):

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