Dryophytes wrightorum (Taylor, 1939)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Hylidae > Subfamily: Hylinae > Genus: Dryophytes > Species: Dryophytes wrightorum

Hyla wrightorum Taylor, 1939 "1938", Univ. Kansas Sci. Bull., 25: 436. Holotype: UMMZ 79141, by original designation and according to Peters, 1952, Occas. Pap. Mus. Zool. Univ. Michigan, 539: 17. Type locality: "Eleven miles south of Springerville, Apache county, Arizona, U.S.A."

Hyla eximia wrightorum — Schmidt, 1953, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 6: 71.

Hyla regilla wrightorum — Jameson, Mackey, and Richmond, 1966, Proc. California Acad. Sci., Ser. 4, 33: 594.

Hyla (Dryophytes) wrightorum — Fouquette and Dubois, 2014, Checklist N.A. Amph. Rept.: 340. 

Dryophytes wrightorum — Duellman, Marion, and Hedges, 2016, Zootaxa, 4104: 23. 

Common Names

Baird's Mexican Hyla (Schmidt, 1953, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 6: 71).

Mountain Treefrog (Collins, Huheey, Knight, and Smith, 1978, Herpetol. Circ., 7: 11; Liner, 1994, Herpetol. Circ., 23: 23; Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 55; Collins, 1997, Herpetol. Circ., 25: 12; Crother, Boundy, Campbell, de Queiroz, Frost, Highton, Iverson, Meylan, Reeder, Seidel, Sites, Taggart, Tilley, and Wake, 2001 "2000", Herpetol. Circ., 29: 10).

Sonora Tree Frog (Wright and Wright, 1933, Handb. Frogs Toads U.S. Canada: x [as Hyla eximia]).

Sonoran Tree-toad (Stebbins, 1951, Amph. W. North Am.: 327).

Arizona Treefrog (Schmidt, 1953, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 6: 71; Conant, Cagle, Goin, Lowe, Neill, Netting, Schmidt, Shaw, Stebbins, and Bogert, 1956, Copeia, 1956: 176; Stebbins, 1966, Field Guide W. North Am. Rept. Amph.: 69; Frost, McDiarmid, and Mendelson, 2008, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 37: 6; Liner and Casas-Andreu, 2008, Herpetol. Circ., 38: 15; Collins and Taggart, 2009, Standard Common Curr. Sci. Names N. Am. Amph. Turtles Rept. Crocodil., ed. 6: 7; Frost, McDiarmid, Mendelson, and Green, 2012, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 39: 15; Frost, Lemmon, McDiarmid, and Mendelson, 2017, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 43: 12).

Wright's Mountain Treefrog (Liner, 1994, Herpetol. Circ., 23: 23).

Wright's Treefrog (Lemos-Espinal, Smith, and Valdes-Lares, 2019, Amph. Rept. Durango: 69).  

Distribution

Discontinuous distributions generally above 2000 m in the Mogollon Rim of central Arizona and west-central New Mexico, the Huachuca Mountains area (in elevation down to about 1400 m) in southeastern Arizona, and Peloncillo Mountains of Hidalgo County, New Mexico, and southward in grama grasslands and pine-oak park-lands in the Sierra Madre Occidental and south to, but not including the state of México, Mexico.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Mexico, United States of America, United States of America - Arizona, United States of America - New Mexico

Comment

In the Hyla eximia group of Faivovich, Haddad, Garcia, Frost, Campbell, and Wheeler, 2005, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 294: 102. Blair, 1960, Southwest. Nat., 5: 129–135, noted two call-types, a northern call-type including Arizona to Michoacan (Mexico) and a southern call type in the region of the type locality. Hyla wrightorum (the northern-most component) was tentatively recognized by Sullivan, 1986, Great Basin Nat., 46: 378–381 (who reported on the advertisement call), but evidentiary discussion was lacking. E. Gergus (pers. comm.), suggests on the basis of call data and allozymes, that two major components could be recognized: Hyla wrightorum (from Arizona to, but not including, the state of Mexico, Mexico) and Hyla eximia (Central and southern Mexico), although other species might be diagnosable. Eliosa León, 2002, Bol. Soc. Herpetol. Mexicana, 10: 59–60, suggested that such a distinction of Hyla wrightorum and Hyla eximia could not be made on morphological grounds alone. Case, Haneline, and Smith, 1975, Syst. Zool., 24: 281–295, discussed relationships of this species (in the sense of being conspecific with Hyla eximia) and rejected a close relationship with Hyla regilla. Duellman, 2001, Hylid Frogs Middle Am., Ed. 2: 983–985, recognized the species as distinct from Hyla eximia (with which it was considered synonymous by Schmidt, 1953, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 6: 71, and Duellman, 1970, Monogr. Mus. Nat. Hist. Univ. Kansas: 499–505) provided an account. Gergus, Reeder, and Sullivan, 2004, Copeia, 2004: 758–769, reported on geographic variation in morphology, calls, allozymes, and mtDNA, demonstrating its distinctiveness from Hyla eximia. See Monatesti, Persons, and Nowak, 2005, Herpetol. Rev., 36: 74–75, for the Zuni Mountain region record in Cibola County, New Mexico, USA (as Hyla eximia). Maldonado-Leal, Warren, Jones, Boyarski, and Rorabaugh, 2009, Herpetol. Rev., 40: 108, provided a record from grassland in the San Pedro River drainage of northern Sonora, Mexico, just south of the Arizona line. Giermakowski, Wilson, and Snell, 2010, Herpetol. Rev., 41: 375, provided a record from McKinley County, New Mexico. Lemos-Espinal, 2007, Anf. Rept. Chihuahua Mexico: 45–46, provided an account for Chihuahua, Mexico. Valdes-Lares, Martín-Muñoz de Cote, and Muñiz-Martínez, 2013, Herpetol. Rev., 44: 648, provided new records for Durango, Mexico, and noted overlap with Hyla eximia in that state. Gergus, Wallace, and Sullivan, 2005, in Lannoo (ed.), Amph. Declines: 461–463, and Dodd, 2013, Frogs U.S. and Canada, 1: 309–332, provided accounts that summarized the relevant literature. Fouquette and Dubois, 2014, Checklist N.A. Amph. Rept.: 340, regarded the southeastern Arizona "record" (although they are multiple and first made in the 1940s and closely approximated by records in northern Sonora, Mexico) as an introduction although the evidence for this statement was not disclosed. Elliot, Gerhardt, and Davidson, 2009, Frogs and Toads of N. Am.: 70–71, provided an account, photos, and advertisement call. Altig and McDiarmid, 2015, Handb. Larval Amph. US and Canada: 201–202, provided an account of larval morphology and biology. Buxton, Kraft, and Sperry, 2015, Herpetol. Rev., 46: 561, provided a record from the oak-grassland bajada at about 1410 m on the east side of the Huachuca Mountains in southeastern Arizona, USA, suggesting that the Huachuca population penetrates to substantially lower and drier elevations than does the Mogollon Rim population in the same state. Rorabaugh and Lemos-Espinal, 2016, Field Guide Amph. Rept. Sonora: 158–160, provided a detailed account of natural history, morphology, distribution, and conservation status in Sonora, Mexico. iNaturalist (2017, https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/7329632) provided a photograph of a specimen from the Peloncillo Mountains, Hidalgo County, New Mexico. Lemos-Espinal, Smith, and Valdes-Lares, 2019, Amph. Rept. Durango: 69–70, provided a brief account for Durango, Mexico. Painter, Stuart, Giermakowski, and Pierce, 2017, Western Wildlife, 4: 36, commented on the status and county range in New Mexico, USA.      

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