Alsodidae Mivart, 1869

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Alsodidae
30 species

Alsodina Mivart, 1869, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1869: 290. Type genus: Alsodes Bell, 1843.

Cacotina Mivart, 1869, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1869: 290. Type genus: Cacotus Günther, 1869 "1868". Synonymy by implication 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: 210.

Alsodini — Lynch, 1969, Final PhD Exam, Program: 3; Lynch, 1971, Misc. Publ. Mus. Nat. Hist. Univ. Kansas, 53: 123.

Grypiscini — Lynch, 1969, Final PhD Exam, Program: 3; Lynch, 1971, Misc. Publ. Mus. Nat. Hist. Univ. Kansas, 53: 135.

Eupsophiinae Lutz, 1969, Acta Zool. Lilloana, 24: 281. Type genus: Eupsophus Fitzinger, 1843. Synonymy with Telmatobiini by implication of Lynch, 1978, Occas. Pap. Mus. Nat. Hist. Univ. Kansas, 72: 42; synonymy with Alsodina 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: 210.

Alsodinae — Grant, Frost, Caldwell, Gagliardo, Haddad, Kok, Means, Noonan, Schargel, and Wheeler, 2006, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 299: 153; Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 178. 

Alsodidae — Pyron and Wiens, 2011, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 61: 543–583.

Limnomedusinae Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 179. Type genus: Limnomedusa Fitzinger, 1843. 

Common Names

None noted.

Distribution

Southern Brazil to northern Paraguay to Chile and Argentina.

Comment

See comment under Cycloramphidae. Grant, Frost, Caldwell, Gagliardo, Haddad, Kok, Means, Noonan, Schargel, and Wheeler, 2006, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 299: 153, suggested that Alsodinae/Alsodes phylogenetically fell within Cycloramphidae. Pyron and Wiens, 2011, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 61: 543–583, subsequently recognized Alsodidae based on their DNA study that suggested that Cycloramphidae (sensu lato) was not monophyletic; these authors also provided a tree of their molecular exemplars. See comments under Cycloramphidae for more discussion about the phylogenetics of this and related taxa. Blotto, Nuñez, Úbeda, Wheeler, and Faivovich, 2013, Cladistics, 29: 113–131, reported on the molecular phylogenetics of Alsodidae, and did not recover Limnomedusa as being particularly near the Eupsophus–Alsodes clade, but rather closer to Cycloramphus (Cycloramphidae), although their analysis was not designed to test this proposition. Regardless, this result suggested that the inclusion of Limnomedusa within Alsodidae is provisional and deserves substantially more testing. Grant, Rada, Anganoy-Criollo, Batista, Dias, Jeckel, Machado, and Rueda-Almonacid, 2017, S. Am. J. Herpetol., 12 (Special Issue): 1–90, corroborated the placement of this family as the sister taxon of Hylodidae. See comment under Limnomedusa. Streicher, Miller, Guerrero, Correa-Quezada, Ortiz, Crawford, Pie, and Wiens, 2018, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 119: 128–143, provided a large molecular tree suggesting that Hylodidae is the sister taxon of Alsodidae and together with Batrachylidae and Cycloramphidae, form a monophyletic group, their Neoaustrarana. Elias-Costa, Araujo-Vieira, and Faivovich, 2021, Cladistics, 37: 498–517, discussed the evolution of submandibular musculature optimized on the tree of Jetz and Pyron, 2018, Nature Ecol. & Evol., 2: 850–858, which provided morphological synapomorphies of this taxon.  

Contained taxa (30 sp.):

Alsodes Bell, 1843 (19 sp.)
Eupsophus Fitzinger, 1843 (10 sp.)
Limnomedusa Fitzinger, 1843 (1 sp.)

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