Scinax nebulosus (Spix, 1824)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Hylidae > Genus: Scinax > Species: Scinax nebulosus

Hyla nebulosa Spix, 1824, Animal. Nova Spec. Nov. Test. Ran. Brasil.: 39. Type(s): Not designated but including animal figured on pl. 10, fig. 4 of the original publication; syntypes were ZSM 2531/0 (2 specimens), now lost according to Duellman, 1977, Das Tierreich, 95: 27, and confirmed by Glaw and Franzen, 2006, Spixiana, München, 29: 168; MNRJ 4055 (holotype of Hyla egleri Lutz, 1968) designated neotype by Hoogmoed and Gruber, 1983, Spixiana, München, Suppl., 9: 369. Type locality: "in sylvis prope flumen Teffé", Amazonas, Brazil. Neotype from "'pirarucu' pond of the Museu Goeldi in Belem do Para", Pará, Brazil.

Hyla egleri Lutz, 1968, Pearce-Sellards Ser., 10: 8. Holotype: MNRJ 4055, by original designation. Type locality: "'pirarucu' pond of the Museu Goeldi in Belem do Para", Pará, Brazil. Synonymy by Hoogmoed and Gruber, 1983, Spixiana, München, Suppl., 9: 369.

Ololygon egleri — Fouquette and Delahoussaye, 1977, J. Herpetol., 11: 393.

Scinax nebulosa — Duellman and Wiens, 1992, Occas. Pap. Mus. Nat. Hist. Univ. Kansas, 151: 23. Disagreement in gender. 

Scinax nebulosus — Köhler and Böhme, 1996, Rev. Fr. Aquar. Herpetol., 23: 139.

 

Common Names

Spix's Snouted Treefrog (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 64).

Distribution

Open areas and forest edges in the eastern Brazilian Amazonia, in the state of Pará, occurring within the Belém and Xingu endemism zones; limited to the west, probably by the River Xingu and to the east by the River Araguaia. 

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Brazil

Endemic: Brazil

Comment

The Scinax nebulosus complex was revised by Ramos, Fouquet, Roberto, Perez, Ferrão, Carvalho, Almeida, Gordo, Dantas, Chaparro Auza, Moura, and Ávila, 2026, J. Vert. Biol., Prague, 75(26059): 1–37, restricting Scinax nebulosus to the with the effect that previous literature of Scinax nebulosus should be used with caution. These authors summarized the phylogenetics, adult morphology, morphometrics, advertisement call, and distribution, as well as noting misidentifications in earlier literature.  

Older comments prior to 1 October 2026: In the Scinax ruber clade, Scinax rostratus group of Faivovich, Haddad, Garcia, Frost, Campbell, and Wheeler, 2005, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 294: 96–97. This species was known as Ololygon egleri (Lutz, 1968, Pearce-Sellards Ser., 10: 8), until Hoogmoed and Gruber, 1983, Spixiana, München, Suppl., 9: 371, noted that Hyla nebulosa Spix, 1824, is the oldest name for this species. de Sá, Wassersug, and Kehr, 1997, Herpetol. J., 7: 13–17, described larval morphology. Duellman, 1997, Sci. Pap. Nat. Hist. Mus. Univ. Kansas, 2: 21, commented on a population in southeastern Venezuela.  Bolivian record by De la Riva, 1990, Boll. Mus. Reg. Sci. Nat. Torino, 8: 281. Without comment, considered a junior synonym of Hyla albopunctata by Lavilla, 1994 "1992", Acta Zool. Lilloana, 42: 70. See De la Riva, Márquez, and Bosch, 1994, Bijdr. Dierkd., 64: 75–85, for advertisement call. De la Riva, Köhler, Lötters, and Reichle, 2000, Rev. Esp. Herpetol., 14: 37, provided the Bolivian citation. Lescure and Marty, 2000, Collect. Patrimoines Nat., Paris, 45: 164–165, provided a photo and brief account for French Guiana. Fouquet, Gilles, Vences, Marty, Blanc, and Gemmell, 2007, PLoS One, 10 (e1109): 1–10, provided molecular evidence that this is a species complex. See account for Suriname population by Ouboter and Jairam, 2012, Amph. Suriname: 180–181. See Cole, Townsend, Reynolds, MacCulloch, and Lathrop, 2013, Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, 125: 415–416, for brief account and records for Guyana. Zimmerman, 1983, Herpetologica, 39: 235–246, reported on advertisement call, as Hyla egleri. See Barrio-Amorós, Rojas-Runjaic, and Señaris Vasquez, 2019, Amph. Rept. Conserv., 13 (1: e180): 86–87, for comments on range and literature. Señaris Vasquez and Rojas-Runjaic, 2020, in Rull and Carnaval (eds.), Neotrop. Divers. Patterns Process.: 571–632, commented on range and conservation status in the Venezuelan Guayana. Dubeux, Silva, Nascimento, Gonçalves, and Mott, 2019, Rev. Nordestina Zool., 12: 18–52, summarized the literature on larval morphology. See Dubeux, Nascimento, Lima, Magalhães, Silva, Gonçalves, Almeida, Correia, Garda, Mesquita, Rossa-Feres, and Mott, 2020, Biota Neotrop., 20 (2: e20180718): 1–24, for characterization and identification of larvae north of the Rio São Francisco in the Atlantic Forest of northeastern Brazil. Freitas, Sales, Sampaio, Piorski, and Weber, 2021, Brazil. J. Biol., 81: 855–866, compared this species with Scinax constrictus employing molecular markers. Reported from the Environmental Protection Area of Catolé and Fernão Velho, Alagoas, Brazil, by Dubeux, Nascimento, Gonçalves, and Mott, 2021, Pap. Avulsos Zool., São Paulo, 61 (e20216176): 1–10, who provided a key to the frogs of that region. Palmeira, Gonçalves, Dubeux, Lima, Lambertini, Valencia-Aguilar, Jenkinson, James, Toledo, and Mott, 2022, Cuad. Herpetol., 36: 65–75, reported on habitat in Natural Heritage Reserve Mata Estrela, Baía Formosa, Rio Grande do Norte state, Brazil. Taucce, Costa-Campos, Carvalho, and Michalski, 2022, Eur. J. Taxon., 836: 96–130, reported on distribution, literature, and conservation status for Amapá, Brazil. In the Scinax rostratus group of Araujo-Vieira, Lourenço, Lacerda, Lyra, Blotto, Ron, Baldo, Pereyra, Suárez-Mayorga, Baêta, Ferreira, Barrio-Amorós, Borteiro, Brandão, Brasileiro, Donnelly, Dubeux, Köhler, Kolenc, Leite, Maciel, Nunes, Orrico, Peloso, Pezzuti, Reichle, Rojas-Runjaic, Silva, Sturaro, Langone, Garcia, Rodrigues, Frost, Wheeler, Grant, Pombal, Haddad, and Faivovich, 2023, S. Am. J. Herpetol., 27 (Special Issue): 76 (see comment under Hylinae). Dubeux, Lisboa, Nascimento, Araujo, Tiburcio, Torquato da Silva, Freitas, Guarnieri, and Mott, 2024, Stud. Neotrop. Fauna Environ., 59: 967–982, reported the species from Estação Ecológica de Murici, Alagoas state, Brazil, and discussed its habitat. Prado and Sturaro, 2025, Zootaxa, 5604: 195–200, reported on the advertisement call of nominal  in some detail, discussed the literature of calls of this species, noting errors in identification as well as suggesting lines of needed taxonomic clarification of what likely represents a species complex, and agreeing that records of nominal Scinax nebulosus from central and western Brazil and Bolivia may actually represent Scinax pedromedinae. Nogueira, Reis, Affonso, Strüssmann, and Sampaio, 2026, Genet. Mol. Biol., 49(e20250053): 1–10, agreed that this name covers a species complex and confirmed presence of Scinax sp. 2, previously recorded in French Guiana, was confirmed for the eastern Amazon (Óbidos, Pará), while their Scinax sp. 5, known from northeastern Brazil (Piauí to Alagoas), was recorded for the first time in the eastern Amazon (Barcarena, Pará).

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