Brachycephaloidea Günther, 1858

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Superfamily: Brachycephaloidea
1224 species

Brachycephalina Günther, 1858, Arch. Naturgesch., 24: 321. Type genus: Brachycephalus Fitzinger, 1826. Not explicitly stated to be a family-group name, but given that it is the only collective immediately above the genus, I (DRF) interpret this as a family-group name. 

Brachycephalina Günther, 1858, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1858: 344. Explicit Section, either in the family-group or above, but most likely above the family-group. See synonymy under Anura. 

Brachycephalidae — Günther, 1858, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1858: 347; 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: 197.

Brachycephalinae — Noble, 1931, Biol. Amph.: 507; Dubois, 2005, Alytes, 23: 11.

Eleutherodactylinae Lutz, 1954, Mem. Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, 52: 157. Type genus: Eleutherodactylus Duméril and Bibron, 1841. Synonymy with Brachycephalina Günther, 1858, by Dubois, 2005, Alytes, 23: 11;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: 197.

Eleutherodactylini — Lynch, 1969, Final PhD Exam, Program: 3; Lynch, 1971, Misc. Publ. Mus. Nat. Hist. Univ. Kansas, 53: 142.

Eleutherodactylinae — Laurent, 1980 "1979", Bull. Soc. Zool. France, 104: 418; Hedges, Duellman, and Heinicke, 2008, Zootaxa, 1737: 49.

Eleutherodactylidae — Hedges, Duellman, and Heinicke, 2008, Zootaxa, 1737: 47.

Craugastoridae Hedges, Duellman, and Heinicke, 2008, Zootaxa, 1737: 1. Type genus: Craugastor Cope, 1862, by original designation.

Craugastorinae — Pyron and Wiens, 2011, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 61: 565.

Strabomantidae Hedges, Duellman, and Heinicke, 2008, Zootaxa, 1737: 95. Type genus: Strabomantis Peters, 1863, by original designation. Synonymy by Padial, Grant, and Frost, 2014, Zootaxa, 3825: 52. 

Strabomantinae — Hedges, Duellman, and Heinicke, 2008, Zootaxa, 1737: 103. 

Holoadeninae Hedges, Duellman, and Heinicke, 2008, Zootaxa, 1737: 97. Type genus: Holoaden Miranda-Ribeiro, 1920.

Ceuthomantidae Heinicke, Duellman, Trueb, Means, MacCulloch, and Hedges, 2009, Zootaxa, 2211: 6. Type genus: Ceuthomantis Heinicke, Duellman, Trueb, Means, MacCulloch, and Hedges, 2009.

Pristimantinae Pyron and Wiens, 2011, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 61: 580. Nomen nudum.

Pristimantinae Ohler and Dubois, 2012, Alytes, 28: 165. Type genus: Pristimantis Jiménez de la Espada, 1870, by original designation. 

Brachycephaloidea — Padial, Grant, and Frost, 2014, Zootaxa, 3825: 49. Explicit superfamily to include Brachycephalidae, Craugastoridae, and Eleutherodactylidae. 

Ceuthomantinae — Padial, Grant, and Frost, 2014, Zootaxa, 3827: 599.

Eleutherodactyloidia — Fouquette and Dubois, 2014, Checklist N.A. Amph. Rept.: 273. Explicit epifamily, coined to be equivalent of the suprafamilial unranked taxon Terrarana Hedges, Duellman, and Heinicke, 2008, Zootaxa, 1737: 21.

Hypodactylinae Heinicke, Lemmon, Lemmon, McGrath, and Hedges, 2017 "2018", Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 118: 145. Type genus: Hypodactylus Hedges, Duellman, and Heinicke, 2008. 

Craugastorini — Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 145. Tribe. 

Pristimantina — Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 145. Subtribe. 

Pristimantinia — Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 147. Infratribe. 

Pristimantoa— Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 147. Hypotribe. 

Holoadeninia — Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 145. Infratribe. 

Barycholinoa Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 146. Type genus: Barycholos Heyer, 1969. Hypotribe. 

Bryophryninoa Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 146. Type genus: Bryophryne Hedges, Duellman, and Heinicke, 2008. Hypotribe. 

Holoadeninoa — Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 147. Hypotribe. 

Noblellinoa Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 147. Type genus: Noblella Barbour, 1930. Hypotribe. 

Hypodactylinia— Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 147. Infratribe. 

Oreobatinoa Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 148. Type genus: Oreobates Jiménez de la Espada, 1872. Hypotribe. 

Oreobatites — Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 147. Clan. 

Phrynopodites Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 147. Type genus: Phrynopus peters, 1873. Clan. 

Strabomantini — Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 145. Tribe. 

Strabomantina — Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 145. Subtribe. 

Strabomantinia — Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 147. infratribe. 

English Names

None noted. 

Distribution

Southern Arizona, southeastern New Mexico, and central Texas (USA) south through Mexico and the Antilles and throughout South America except for the southern cone. 

Comment

The explicit superfamily Brachycephaloidea was coined by Padial, Grant, and Frost, 2014, Zootaxa, 3825: 49, to include Brachycephalidae, Craugastoridae, and Eleutherodactylidae, families that were not diagnosed from each other on the basis of morphology. These authors also included Geobatrachus and Atopophrynus within the superfamily but could not assign them to family. On the basis of mtDNA genomes, but single terminals per family, Pie, Ströher, Bornschein, Ribeiro, Faircloth, and McCormack, 2017, Biochem. Syst. Ecol., 71: 26–31, suggested that the topology is Eleutherodactylus + (Craugastoridae + Brachycephalidae) rather than the previously thought Brachycephalidae + (Craugastoridae + Eleutherodactylidae). Heinicke, Lemmon, Lemmon, McGrath, and Hedges, 2017 "2018", Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 118: 145–155, provided a study of a very large number of nucleotides, but only 30 ingroup taxa analysed via ML and coalescent species tree methods that largely corroborates the study of Hedges, Duellman, and Heinicke, 2008, Zootaxa, 1737: 1–182. However, the low number of ingroup taxa compared to those included by Pyron and Wiens, 2011, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 61: 543–583, and Padial, Grant, and Frost, 2014, Zootaxa, 3825: 1–132, renders their conclusions problematic inasmuch as taxon sampling density is hugely important (see Wheeler, 1992, Extinct. Cladistic Analysis: 205–215, Hillis, 1996, Nature, 383: 383, Graybeal, 1998, Syst. Biol., 47: 9–17, Zwickl and Hillis, 2002, Syst. Biol., 51: 588–598, and Wheeler, 2007, in Hodkinson and Parnell (eds.), Reconstruct. Tree of Life). Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 1–738, provided a tree largely consistent with earlier ML trees. Motta, Taucce, Haddad, and Canedo, 2021, J. Zool. Syst. Evol. Res., 59: 663–679, provided a taxon and terminal-dense study and discussed the seemingly inherent instability of the tree and its emergent taxonomy, noting grave instability at the level of family and suggesting that a more stable taxonomic arrangement would be to consider the current units (outlined by them) as subfamilies within a single family (presumably Brachycephalidae), but did not execute the taxonomic revision. Barrientos, Streicher, Miller, Pie, Wiens, and Crawford, 2021, Syst. Biodiversity, 19: 818–833, applied an enormous amount of molecular data to 16 ingroup species out of the 1198 named species that comprised Brachycephaloidea. That analysis produced a number of novel and more traditional relationships. The family relationships found were (Brachycephalidae, (Eleutherodactylidae, (Craugastoridae + ‘Strabomantidae’))), with Strabomantis being either the sister taxon of, or within,  Craugastor; this means that if their tree is correct Strabomantidae is paraphyletic with respect to Craugastoridae. In addition, their data suggest that Pristimantinae is paraphyletic with respect to Holoadeninae. While DRF does not dispute these results over this small number of terminals, there is a substantial body of literature (e.g., see above for citations to Wheeler, 1992; Hillis, 1996; Graybeal, 1998, Zwickl and Hillis, 2002, and Wheeler, 2007; see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_branch_attraction) that suggests that above some minimal level of number of terminals and amount of data, that the number of terminals becomes ascendant in importance as it promotes the partition of long branches. So, while this is an extremely interesting paper, until the terminal density of this kind of analysis expands ca. 10x I'm (DRF) going to retain the existing classification for purposes of this catalog. 

Contained taxa (1224 sp.):

Atopophrynus Lynch and Ruiz-Carranza, 1982 (1 sp.)
Brachycephalidae Günther, 1858 (77 sp.)
Ceuthomantidae Heinicke, Duellman, Trueb, Means, MacCulloch, and Hedges, 2009 (4 sp.)
Craugastoridae Hedges, Duellman, and Heinicke, 2008 (129 sp.)
Dischidodactylus Lynch, 1979 (2 sp.)
Eleutherodactylidae Lutz, 1954 (237 sp.)
Geobatrachus Ruthven, 1915 (1 sp.)
Strabomantidae Hedges, Duellman, and Heinecke, 2008 (773 sp.)

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