Werneria Poche, 1903

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Bufonidae > Genus: Werneria
6 species

Stenoglossa Andersson, 1903, Verh. Zool. Bot. Ges. Wien, 53: 144. Type species: Stenoglossa fulva Andersson, 1903, by monotypy. Junior homonym of Stenoglossa Chaudoir, 1848, Bull. Soc. Imp. Nat. Moscou, 21: 116 (Coleoptera).

Werneria Poche, 1903, Zool. Anz., 26: 701. Replacement name for Stenoglossa Andersson, 1903.

Mo Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 164. Type species: Bufo bambutensis Amiet, 1972. 

Common Names

Smalltongue Toads (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 46).

Torrent Toads (Channing and Rödel, 2019, Field Guide Frogs & Other Amph. Afr.: 98).

Distribution

Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and Cameroon, West Africa.

Comment

Reviewed by Amiet, 1972, Ann. Fac. Sci. Cameroun, 11: 121–140, and Amiet, 1976, Rev. Zool. Bot. Afr., 90: 33–45. Grandison, 1981, Monit. Zool. Ital., N.S., Suppl., 15: 187–215, discussed the phylogenetic relationships of the genus as did Graybeal, 1997, Zool. J. Linn. Soc., 119: 297–338. See comment under Didynamipus. Rödel, Schmitz, Pauwels, and Böhme, 2004, Zootaxa, 720: 1–28, revised the genus and provided accounts of the species. 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, suggested that Werneria may be the sister taxon of Wolterstorffina. Van Bocxlaer, Loader, Roelants, Biju, Menegon, and Bossuyt, 2010, Science, 327: 679–682, on the basis of a more densely-sampled analysis suggested that Werneria is the sister taxon of Nectophryne. Pyron and Wiens, 2011, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 61: 543–583, came to similar results (although this is difficult to see because the authors explicitly adopted a non-monophyletic and out-dated taxonomy) but found Wolterstorffina to be the closest relative. Channing, Rödel, and Channing, 2012, Tadpoles of Africa: 161–163, reported on comparative tadpole morphology. Dewynter and Frétey, 2019, Cah. Fondation Biotope, 27: 19, summarized the literature for Gabon and provided photographs (p. 51) of an unnamed Werneria, which was previous noted in a brief account and photographs by Dewynter, Chirio, Melki, Cordier, and Frétey, 2017, Cah. Fondation Biotope, 11: 29. Channing and Rödel, 2019, Field Guide Frogs & Other Amph. Afr.: 98–101, provided brief accounts, photographs, and range maps for the species. 

Contained taxa (6 sp.):

Werneria bambutensis (Amiet, 1972)
Werneria iboundji Rödel, Schmitz, Pauwels, and Böhme, 2004
Werneria mertensiana Amiet, 1976
Werneria preussi (Matschie, 1893)
Werneria submontana Rödel, Schmitz, Pauwels, and Böhme, 2004
Werneria tandyi (Amiet, 1972)

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