Arthroleptinae Mivart, 1869

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Arthroleptidae > Subfamily: Arthroleptinae
67 species

Arthroleptina Mivart, 1869, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1869: 294. Type genus: Arthroleptis Smith, 1849.

Arthroleptinae — Noble, 1931, Biol. Amph.: 515.

Arthroleptidae — Laurent, 1972, Copeia, 1972: 200.

Arthroleptoidea — Dubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 309. Coined as an explicit epifamily.

Arthroleptini — 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: 234.

Arthroleptoidea — Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 221. Superfamily. 

Common Names

Squeakers (Arthroleptini: Lambiris, 1990 "1989", Monogr. Mus. Reg. Sci. Nat. Torino, 10: 133; Channing, 2001, Amph. Cent. S. Afr.: v; Channing and Howell, 2006, Amph. E. Afr.: 46).

Screeching Frogs (Arthroleptini: Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 36).

Distribution

Subsaharan Africa.

Comment

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: 234, provided a taxonomic history and discussed phylogeny in the group, placing Arthroleptidae and Astylosternidae as tribes, Arthroleptini (Arthroleptis, Cardioglossa, and Scotobleps) and Astylosternini (Astylosternus, Leptodactylodon, Nyctibates, and Trichobatrachus) in a monophyletic Arthroleptinae and transferred Leptopelinae from Hyperoliidae to Arthroleptidae, as the sister subfamily of Arthroleptinae. Laurent, 1951, Rev. Zool. Bot. Afr., 45: 119, included Arthroleptinae and Astylosterninae (and Hemisotidae and, provisionally, Scaphiophryninae) in his Hyperoliidae, which was suggested to be monophyletic. Poynton, 1964, Ann. Natal Mus., 17: 159, retained astylosternines, arthroleptines, and hemisotines in Ranidae, as did most subsequent authors. Dubois, 1981, Monit. Zool. Ital., N.S., Suppl., 15: 259, included Arthroleptinae with Astylosterninae in his Arthroleptidae (which was apparently intended to be paraphyletic), and excluded Hyperoliidae and Hemisotidae. Bogart and Tandy, 1981, Monit. Zool. Ital., N.S., Suppl., 15: 81, suggested on the basis of karyology a common ancestry of arthroleptines with sooglossids. Subsequently, Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 34, placed Arthroleptinae, Astylosterninae, and Hyperoliinae (Hyperoliidae of this catalog) in an enlarged Arthroleptidae (the name of which has priority over Hyperoliidae). Dubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 305–352, changed the rank of these taxa from subfamilies to families (Arthroleptidae, Astylosternidae, and Hyperoliidae), apparently to deal with the possible paraphyly of Arthroleptidae sensu Dubois, 1987, 1992 (fide Ford and Cannatella, 1993, Herpetol. Monogr., 7: 94–117). Laurent, 1984, Alytes, 3: 97–111, suggested that Astylosterninae is most closely related to Hyperoliidae (Hyperoliinae in his usage). See Laurent, 1941, Rev. Zool. Bot. Afr., 34: 192–234, for discussion of subgeneric, generic, and subfamilial relationships. Laurent, 1973, Rev. Zool. Bot. Afr., 87: 666–678, discussed the relationships among the genera and disputed the synonymy of Coracodichus and Schoutedenella with Arthroleptis by Loveridge, 1957, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., 117: 351; Schmidt and Inger, 1959, Explor. Parc Natl. Upemba, Miss. G.F. de Witte, 56: 1–264; and Poynton, 1964, Ann. Natal Mus., 17: 1–334. See also Poynton, 1976, Rev. Zool. Bot. Afr., 90: 215–220, for a discussion of this controversy. Laurent, 1984, Alytes, 3: 97–101, considered Astylosternini to be paraphyletic with respect to Hyperoliidae. Laurent and Fabrezi, 1986 "1985", Alytes, 4: 85–93, discussed carpal morphology and phylogenetic relationships among the nominal genera (in their view (Arthroleptis + Coracodichus) + (Cardioglossa + Schoutedenella). Laurent and Fabrezi, 1990 "1989", Alytes, 8: 41–40, presented further discussion of carpal anatomy. Dubois, 1999, Alytes, 17: 90–91, provided tables of generic and family-group name priorities that will be very helpful to those undertaking revisions. Scott, 2005, Cladistics, 21: 523, placed Astylosternidae as a subfamily of Arthroleptidae (and considered the leptopelines as a family, Leptopelidae). Bossuyt, Brown, Hillis, Cannatella, and Milinkovitch, 2006, Syst. Biol., 55: 579–594, provided evidence (albeit on much less dense taxonomic sampling) that Arthroleptinae of Frost et al. (2006) is paraphyletic with respect to Leptopelinae. Amiet, 1978 "1977", Ann. Fac. Sci. Cameroun, 23–24: 101–103, compared the genera of Astylosternini. Rödel and Bangoura, 2004, Tropical Zool., 17: 210, provided instructive comments regarding the taxonomy of this group in West Africa. Channing, 2001, Amph. Cent. S. Afr.: 42, provided a key to the species of southern Africa, and Channing and Howell, 2006, Amph. E. Afr.: 46–64, provided keys and accounts for the species of East Africa. van der Meijden, Vences, Hoegg, Boistel, Channing, and Meyer, 2007, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 44: 1017–1030, provided evidence that Arthroleptinae is paraphyletic with respect to Leptopelinae. Blackburn, 2008, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 49: 806–826, discussed phylogenetics of the group. Pyron and Wiens, 2011, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 61: 543–583, provided a phylogenetic hypotheses for their examplar species and considered Arthroleptinae to be the sister taxon of Leptopelinae. Portik, Bell, Blackburn, Bauer, Barratt, Branch, Burger, Channing, Colston, Conradie, Dehling, Drewes, Ernst, Greenbaum, Gvoždík, Harvey, Hillers, Hirschfeld, Jongsma, Kielgast, Kouete, Lawson, Leaché, Loader, Lötters, van der Meijden, Menegon, Müller, Nagy, Ofori-Boateng, Ohler, Papenfuss, Rößler, Sinsch, Rödel, Veith, Vindum, Zassi-Boulou, and McGuire, 2019, Syst. Biol., 68: 866, confirmed the monophyly of the subfamily. 

Contained taxa (67 sp.):

Arthroleptis Smith, 1849 (49 sp.)
Cardioglossa Boulenger, 1900 (18 sp.)

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