Dendropsophus leucophyllatus (Beireis, 1783)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Hylidae > Subfamily: Hylinae > Genus: Dendropsophus > Species: Dendropsophus leucophyllatus

Hyla bufoides Meuschen, 1781, in Gronovius, Zoophyl. Gronoviani: XXX. Type(s): Not known to exist. Type locality: XXX. Invalid name by reason of work being suppressed by Anonymous, 1954, Bull. Zool. Nomencl., 5: 265-279; Anonymous, 1954, Bull. Zool. Nomencl., 5: 281-296).

Rana leucophyllata Beireis, 1783, Schr. Ges. Naturforsch. Freunde Berlin, 4: 182. Type(s): NHRM 157 (now lost) was regarded as the holotype by Duellman, 1977, Das Tierreich, 95: 69; this was disputed by Böhme, 1981, Bonn. Zool. Beitr., 32: 283-295, who suggested that NHRM 157 is a surviving syntype of Rana boans Linnaeus, 1758, and that the holotype of Rana leucophyllata is lost. MNHNP 2015.129 designated neotype by Caminer, Milá, Jansen, Fouquet, Venegas, Chávez, Lougheed, and Ron, 2017, PLoS One, 12(3: e0171785): 20. Type locality: Unknown, but believed by Beireis to be from Suriname. Neotype from "French Guiana, Municipality of Sinnamary (5.3734° N, 53.0975° W), 49 m above sea level". 

Hyla leucophylla — Gmelin, 1789, Syst. Nat., Ed. 13, 1(3): 1055. Incorrect subsequent spelling.

Rana variegata Bonnaterre, 1789, Tab. Encyclop. Method. Trois Reg. Nat., Erp.: 8. Types: Not known to exist; based on description of species 67 in Gronovius, 1763, Zoophyl. Gronov.: page 15, no. 67, according to Dubois, 1995, Dumerilia, 2: 57. Type locality: Unknown. Synonymy by Daudin, 1800, Hist. Nat. Quad. Ovip., Livr. 1: 5, although Dubois, 1995, Dumerilia, 2: 57, noted that the description would fit many other species. Primary homonym of Rana variegata Linnaeus, 1758 (= Bombina variegata).

Calamita leucophyllata — Schneider, 1799, Hist. Amph. Nat.: 168.

Hyla frontalis Daudin, 1800, Hist. Nat. Quad. Ovip., Livr. 1: 5, pl. 3. Holotype: Levaillant collection by original designation; MNHNP 4868, according to Guibé, 1950 "1948", Cat. Types Amph. Mus. Natl. Hist. Nat.: 20. Type locality: "Surinam". Named as a junior synonym of Rana leucophyllata Beireis. Synonymy by Daudin, 1802 "An. XI", Hist. Nat. Rain. Gren. Crap., Quarto: 4; Daudin, 1803 "An. XI", Hist. Nat. Gen. Part. Rept., 8: 45; Gravenhorst, 1807, Vergleich. Uebersicht Linn. Neuern Zool. Syst.: 432; Tschudi, 1838, Classif. Batr.: 72; Duméril and Bibron, 1841, Erp. Gen., 6: 607; Günther, 1859 "1858", Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus.: 112; Boulenger, 1882, Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus., Ed. 2: 387.

Calamita leucophyllatus — Merrem, 1820, Tent. Syst. Amph.: 173.

Hypsiboas leucophyllatus — Tschudi, 1838, Classif. Batr.: 72.

Dendropsophus frontalis — Fitzinger, 1843, Syst. Rept.: 31.

Hyla (Hyla) leucophyllata — Burmeister, 1856, Erläut. Fauna Brasil.: 104.

Dendropsophus leucophyllatus — Faivovich, Haddad, Garcia, Frost, Campbell, and Wheeler, 2005, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 294: 91.

Common Names

White-leaf Frog (Shaw, 1802, Gen. Zool., 3(1): 127).

Beireis' Treefrog (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 56; Caminer, Milá, Jansen, Fouquet, Venegas, Chávez, Lougheed, and Ron, 2017, PLoS One, 12(3: e0171785): 20).

White-leaf Treefrog (Villacampa-Ortega, Serrano-Rojas, and Whitworth, 2017, Amph. Manu Learning Cent.: 136).

Distribution

Northern Brazilian Amazonia, Suriname, Guyana, and French Guiana, below 400 m elevation; expected in adjacent Venezuela but not yet reported. See comment. 

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Brazil, French Guiana, Guyana, Suriname

Likely/Controversially Present: Venezuela

Comment

For discussion of geographic variation and synonyms at that time, see Duellman, 1974, Occas. Pap. Mus. Nat. Hist. Univ. Kansas, 27: 17–18. Duellman, 1978, Misc. Publ. Mus. Nat. Hist. Univ. Kansas, 65: 152–153, provided a brief account including characterization of call and tadpole. See comment under Hyla elegans. Lescure and Marty, 2000, Collect. Patrimoines Nat., Paris, 45: 138–139, provided a brief account and photo. In the Dendropsophus leucophyllatus group of Faivovich, Haddad, Garcia, Frost, Campbell, and Wheeler, 2005, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 294: 91. Lougheed, Austin, Bogart, Boag, and Chek, 2006, BMC Evol. Biol., 6 (23): 1–16, reported on geographic variation of both morphology and molecular characters and provided evidence that nominal Dendropsophus leucophyllatus is paraphyletic with respect to Dendropsophus triangulum. Fouquet, Gilles, Vences, Marty, Blanc, and Gemmell, 2007, PLoS One, 10 (e1109): 1–10, provided molecular evidence that this is a species complex. Bernarde, Machado, and Turci, 2011, Biota Neotrop., 11: 117–144, reported specimens from Reserva Extrativista Riozinho da Liberdade, Acre, Brazil. França and Venâncio, 2010, Biotemas, 23: 71–84, provided a record for the municipality of Boca do Acre, Amazonas, with a brief discussion of the range. See account for Suriname population by Ouboter and Jairam, 2012, Amph. Suriname: 116–118. See Cole, Townsend, Reynolds, MacCulloch, and Lathrop, 2013, Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, 125: 400-401, for brief account and records for Guyana. Schulze, Jansen, and Köhler, 2015, Zootaxa, 4016: 24–26, characterized and pictured the larva. Caminer, Milá, Jansen, Fouquet, Venegas, Chávez, Lougheed, and Ron, 2017, PLoS One, 12(3: e0171785): 1–42, revised the group, provided a detailed account, phylogenetic placement, and redelimited the species, which excluded much of the former range of Dendropsophus "leucophyllatus" (e.g., Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia). Zimmerman, 1983, Herpetologica, 39: 235–246, reported on advertisement call, as Hyla leucophyllata. Pirani, Peloso, Carvalho, Polo, Knowles, Ron, Rodrigues, Sturaro, and Werneck, 2020, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 15 (106877): 1–19, documented that this nominal taxon is composed of at least two species. Metcalf, Marsh, Torres Pacaya, Graham, and Gunnels, 2020, Herpetol. Notes, 13: 753–767, reported the species from the Santa Cruz Forest Reserve, Loreto, northeastern Peru, although this identification is questionable given the work of Caminer et al., 2017. In the Dendropsophus leucophyllatus group of Orrico, Grant, Faivovich, Rivera-Correa, Rada, Lyra, Cassini, Valdujo, Schargel, Machado, Wheeler, Barrio-Amorós, Loebmann, Moravec, Zina, Solé, Sturaro, Peloso, Suárez, and Haddad, 2021, Cladistics, 37: 73–105. Taucce, Costa-Campos, Carvalho, and Michalski, 2022, Eur. J. Taxon., 836: 96–130, reported on distribution, literature, and conservation status for Amapá, Brazil. Schiesari, Rossa-Feres, Menin, and Hödl, 2022, Zootaxa, 5223: 52–53, detailed larval morphology and natural history. In the Dendropsophus leucophyllatus group of Whitcher, Orrico, Ron, Lyra, Cassini, Ferreira, Nakamura, Peloso, Rada, Rivera-Correa, Sturaro, Valdujo, Haddad, Grant, Faivovich, Lemmon, and Lemmon, 2025, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 204 (108275): 1–18.

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