Pithecopus azureus (Cope, 1862)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Hylidae > Subfamily: Phyllomedusinae > Genus: Pithecopus > Species: Pithecopus azureus

Phyllomedusa azurea Cope, 1862, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 14: 355. Syntypes: including USNM 5832 according to Cochran, 1961, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 220: 70. Type locality: Not mentioned specifically, but the Page Expedition visited many localities that are now in Brazil, northeastern Argentina, and southern Paraguay, along the drainages of the Paraná and Paraguai Rivers. Restricted to "Paraguay" by Cochran, 1961, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 220: 70, according to Caramaschi, 2006, Arq. Mus. Nac., Rio de Janeiro, 64: 162.

Pithecopus azureus — Cope, 1866, J. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, Ser. 2, 6: 86; Cope, 1868, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 20: 113.

Phyllomedusa hypochondrialis azurea — Mertens, 1926, Senckenb. Biol., 8: 137–155.

Pithecopus hypochondrialis azureus — Lutz, 1966, Copeia, 1966: 236.

Phyllomedusa azurea — Norman, 1994, Anf. Rept. Chaco Paraguayo, 1: 46, without discussion; Caramaschi, 2006, Arq. Mus. Nac., Rio de Janeiro, 64: 159.

Pithecopus azureus — Duellman, Marion, and Hedges, 2016, Zootaxa, 4104: 32. 

Common Names

None noted.

Distribution

Chacoan regions of eastern Bolivia (Beni and Santa Cruz provinces), Paraguay, northern Argentina (Salta, eastern Jujuy, Formosa, Chaco, northern Santiago del Estero, Santa Fe, and Corrientes provinces), Paraguay () and pantanal and cerrado regions of central and western Brazil (Rondônia, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Tocantins, Goiás, Distrito Federal, Minas Gerais, and São Paulo) as well as in the northeast (Pauí, municipalities of Ribeiro Gonçalves and Joaquim Pires; expected in adjacent Maranhão). 

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay

Comment

De la Riva, Köhler, Lötters, and Reichle, 2000, Rev. Esp. Herpetol., 14: 38, noted that Phyllomedua hypochondrialis azurea was allopatric and diagnosable from Phyllomedusa hypochondrialis hypochondrialis. De la Riva, Márquez, and Bosch, 1995, J. Herpetol., 29: 113–118, reported on the advertisement call in Bolivia (as Phyllomedusa hypochondrialis). Removed from the synonymy of Phyllomedusa iheringii by Caramaschi, 2006, Arq. Mus. Nac., Rio de Janeiro, 64: 159–179 (who retained it in the Phyllomedusa hypochondrialis group), where it had been placed by Boulenger, 1882, Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus., Ed. 2: 430. Barrio, 1976, Physis, Buenos Aires, 35: 65–74, reported on karyotype and call.  Brusquetti and Lavilla, 2006, Cuad. Herpetol., 20: 12, briefly discussed range in Paraguay. Prado, Borges, Silva, Tognolo, and Rossa-Feres, 2008, Check List, 4: 55–56, provided a record for northern São Paulo (state), Brazil. Calderon, Messias, Serrano, Zaqueo, Souza, Nienow, Cardozo, Diniz-Sousa, Delaix-Zaqueo, and Stabeli, 2009, Check List, 5: 317–319, provided a record for northern Rondônia, Brazil, discussed and mapped the range, and provided a photograph. In the Phyllomedusa hypochondrialis group of Faivovich, Haddad, Baêta, Jungfer, Álvares, Brandão, Sheil, Barrientos, Barrio-Amorós, Cruz, and Wheeler, 2010, Cladistics, 26: 259. The population noted by Lucas, Fortes, and Garcia, 2010, Check List, 6: 164–166, as an apparently isolated population in the municipality of Agua Doce, Santa Catarina, Brazil, and which they suggested might represent a species complex, was subsequently named Phyllomedusa rustrica. Weiler, Núñez, Airaldi, Lavilla, Peris, and Baldo, 2013, Anf. Paraguay: 70, provided a brief account, image, and dot map for Paraguay. Schulze, Jansen, and Köhler, 2015, Zootaxa, 4016: 53–56, described, diagnosed, and pictured the larvae of the two genealogical lineages found in Bolivia. Santos, Morais, Signorelli, Bastos, Feio, and Nomura, 2017, Herpetologica, 74: 50–57, reported on larval morphology. Haga, Carvalho, Andrade, and Giaretta, 2017, Phyllomedusa, 16: 47–56, reported on the advertisement and aggressive calls. Neves, Yves, Pereira Silva, Alves, Vasques, Coelho, and Silva, 2019, Herpetozoa, Wien, 32: 113–123, provided habitat information and records for western Minas Gerais, Brazil. Röhr, Camurugi, Paterno, Gehara, Juncá, Álvares, Brandão, and Garda, 2020, Canad. J. Zool., 98: 495–504, reported on the evolution and causes of variability of advertisement call. Silva, Carvalho-e-Silva, Ribeiro, Machado, and Couto, 2021, Herpetol. Notes, 14: 121–123, discussed the range in Piauí, Brazil, and discussed and mapped the occurrences in that state. Santos, Feio, and Nomura, 2023, Biota Neotrop., 23 (3:e20231486): 1–43, characterized tadpole morphology as part of an identification key to the tadpoles of the Brazilian Cerrado. 

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