Hyla savignyi Audouin, 1827

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Hylidae > Subfamily: Hylinae > Genus: Hyla > Species: Hyla savignyi

Hyla savignyi Audouin, 1827, Descript. Egypte, 1(4): 183, pl. 2, fig. 13. Type(s): Not stated, although including animal figured on pl. 2, figs. 13.1–2 in the Supplement to the original publication. Type locality: Not stated explicitly though from context clearly "Égypte" in some very general regional sense including Syria; stated by Mertens and Müller, 1928, Abh. Senckenb. Naturforsch. Ges., 41: 19, as "unbestimmt, wahrescheinlich aber Syrien" (= undetermined, probably Syria); stated to be Syria by Flower, 1933, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1933: 844; given as "Western Syria" by Duellman, 1977, Das Tierreich, 95: 33.

Hyla arborea var. savignyi — Boulenger, 1882, Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus., Ed. 2: 380; Boettger, 1885, Ber. Offenbach. Ver. Naturkd., 24–25: 164.

Hyla arborea savignyi — Nikolskii, 1913, Herpetol. Caucasica: 219; Nieden, 1923, Das Tierreich, 46: 199.

Hyla savignyi — Schneider and Nevo, 1972, Zool. Jahrb., Allg. Zool. Physiol. Tiere, 76: 497–506; Schneider, 1974, Oecologia, Berlin, 14: 109.

Hyla (Hyla) savignyi — Fouquette and Dubois, 2014, Checklist N.A. Amph. Rept.: 331, by implication. 

Common Names

Middle East Tree Frog (Dufresnes, 2019, Amph. Eur., N. Afr., & Middle East: 67).  

Savigny's Treefrog (Flower, 1933, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1933: 842; Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 58; Arakelyan, Danielyan, Corti, Sindaco, and Leviton, 2011, Herpetofauna of Armenia: 43).

Lemon-yellow Tree Frog (Schneider and Nevo, 1972, Zool. Jahrb., Allg. Zool. Physiol. Tiere, 76: 497; Kuzmin, 1999, Amph. Former Soviet Union: 288; Baier, Sparrow, and Wiedl, 2013, Amph. Rept. Cyprus, 2nd ed.: 42).

Distribution

Extreme northwestern Sinai (Egypt), Israel, Syria and southern and eastern Türkiye to western Iran (Fars, Khuzestan, Lorestan, Ilam, Kermanshah, Kordestan, Hamedan, Markazi, Zanjan, Qom, Esfahan, Chahar Mahal Va Bakhtiari, Kohgiluyeh Va Boyer Ahmad, Ardabil, East Azarbaijan and West Azarbaijan provinces), Iraq, and Armenia, southern Georgia and Azerbaijan.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Egypt, Georgia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Türkiye

Comment

This species was regarded as distinct from Hyla arborea by Schneider, 1974, Oecologia, Berlin, 14: 99–110, and Schneider, Nevo, Heth, Simson, and Brzoska, 1984, Zool. Anz., 213: 306–312. See account by Balletto, Cherchi, and Gasperetti, 1985, Fauna Saudi Arabia, 7: 363–367. See accounts by Baloutch and Kami, 1995, Amph. Iran: 149;  Kuzmin, 1999, Amph. Former Soviet Union: 288–291, and Kuzmin, 2013, Amph. Former Soviet Union, Ed. 2: 178–179. Maxson, 1978, J. Herpetol., 12: 98–100, reported on molecular distance of Hyla savignyi from Hyla arborea. Kaya, 2001, Israel J. Zool., 47: 123–134, discussed distribution in Türkiye. Kaya and Simmons, 1999, Bioacoustics, 10: 175–190, described the advertisement call in Türkiye. Tuniyev, 1999, Adv. Amph. Res. Former Soviet Union, 3: 56–57, noted that records of this species from the western Caucasus and western Transcaucasia are attributable to Hyla arborea. Schneider, 2001, Zool. Middle East, 23: 61–69, documented the contact zone of Hyla arborea and Hyla savignyi in southern Türkiye. Hraoui-Bloquet, Sadek, Sindaco, and Venchi, 2002, Zool. Middle East, 27: 36, provided definitive records for Lebanon. Kami, 2005, Herpetol. Rev., 36: 75, provided a new record for Iran. In the Hyla arborea group of Faivovich, Haddad, Garcia, Frost, Campbell, and Wheeler, 2005, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 294: 102. Baha El Din, 2006, Guide Rept. Amph. Egypt: 46–47, provided an account for Egypt. Amr, Shehab, and Abu Baker, 2007, Herpetozoa, Wien, 20: 21–26, briefly discsussed the range in Syria and provided a new locality on the Euphrates River. Stöck, Dubey, Klütsch, Litvinchuk, Scheidt, and Perrin, 2008, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 49: 1019–1024, suggested that at least two species were included under this name, neither of which currently can unambiguously have the name Hyla savignyi applied to it: one from Yemen to Syria (now Hyla felixarabica), and another from Cyprus and Türkiye to Syria and Iran (now Hyla savignyi). Leviton, Anderson, Adler, and Minton, 1992, Handb. Middle East Amph. Rept.: 146, provided a brief account. Gvoždík, Moravec, Klütsch, and Kotlík, 2010, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 55: 1146–1158, discussed molecular phylogenetics and redelimited the species. Werner, 2010, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 57: 955–956, disuputed the application of this name to this lineage; this argument was rejected by Stöck, Dubey, Klütsch, Litvinchuk, Scheidt, and Perrin, 2010, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 57: 957–958. Grosse, 2011, Laubfrösche: 1–286, reviewed the biology of the species. Arakelyan, Danielyan, Corti, Sindaco, and Leviton, 2011, Herpetofauna of Armenia: 43–44, provided a brief account for Armenia. See comments on distribution and population status in Egypt by Ibrahim, 2013, Basic & Appl. Herpetol., 27: 110. Safaei-Mahroo, Ghaffari, Fahimi, Broomand, Yazdanian, Najafi-Majd, Hosseinian Yousefkani, Rezazadeh, Hosseinzadeh, Nasrabadi, Mashayekhi, Motesharei, Naderi, and Kazemi, 2015, Asian Herpetol. Res., 6: 257–290, reported on distribution and conservation status in Iran. Stöck, Dufresnes, Litvinchuk, Lymberakis, Biollay, Berroneau, Borzée, Ghali, Ogielska, and Perrin, 2012, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 65: 1–9, reported on the genetic diversity among populations of the Hyla arborea group and provided a dot map of the ranges, including this species. Mulder, 2019, Amph. Rept. Conserv., 13: 162–172, reported the species from the Mount Ararat region of extreme eastern Türkiye. See detailed account for Egypt by Escoriza and Ben Hassine, 2019, Amph. N. Afr.: 249–253. Dufresnes, Mazepa, Jablonski, Sadek, and Litvinchuk, 2019, Biol. J. Linn. Soc., 128: 130–137, discussed the Dead Sea Rift as a biogeographic barrier involved in the separation of Hyla savignyi and Hyla felixarabica. See Dufresnes, 2019, Amph. Eur., N. Afr., & Middle East: 67, for brief summary of identifying morphology and biology, a range map, as well as a photograph. Al-Jabry and Karamiani, 2018, Univ. Thi-Qar J., 13: 18–27, provided a record for Maysan Province, eastern Iraq. Dufresnes, Berroneau, Dubey, Litvinchuk, and Perrin, 2020, Sci. Rep. (Nature, London), 10 (5502): 1–10, discussed the genetics of the contact zone with Hyla felixarabica and Hyla orientalis. Yildiz, 2020, Amph. Rept. Conserv., 14 (2: e242): 147, reported the species from Kilis Province, southern Türkiye. Key to the species, synonymy, distribution (including map), and access to literature provided by Safaei-Mahroo and Ghaffari, 2020, Compl. Guide Amph. Iran: 1–331. Yaşar, Çiçek, Mulder, and Tok, 2021, North-West. J. Zool., Romania, 17(e201512): 232–275, discussed and grid-mapped the range in Türkiye. Safaei-Mahroo, Ghaffari, and Niamir, 2023, Zootaxa, 5279: 1–112, provided for Iran an identification key including this species, photographs, habitat, conservation threats and Red List recommendation, a review of the literature, as well as dot and modeled distribution maps. Hosseinian Yousefkani, Shafiei Bafti, Rezazadeh Mashizi, and Moeinadini, 2024, North-West. J. Zool., Romania, 20(e242501): 85–89, discussed the possible effects of climate change on the range in Iran and provided a current dot map for that country. Ergül Kalaycı, 2024, Biol. Bull., 51: 1231–1240, reported on mtDNA lineages in Turkiye. Spawls, Mazuch, and Mohammad, 2023, Handb. Amph. Rept. NE Afr.: 33, provided an account addressing identification, natural history, conservation status, and range in Egypt, including a polygon map.     

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