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Leiopelmatidae Mivart, 1869
Liopelmatina Mivart, 1869, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1869: 291. Type genus: Liopelma Günther, 1869. Considered an incorrect original spelling by Opinion 1071, Anonymous, 1977, Bull. Zool. Nomencl., 33: 167.
Liopelmidae Noble, 1924, Am. Mus. Novit., 132: 9. Type genus: Liopelma Günther, 1869. Objective synonym and homonym of Liopelmatina Mivart, 1869. Treated as a subsequent usage of Liopelmatina Mivart, 1869, by Fouquette and Dubois, 2014, Checklist N.A. Amph. Rept.: 255.
Leiopelmidae — Turbott, 1942, Trans. Proc. R. Soc. New Zealand, 71: 247.
Leiopelmatidae — Stephenson, 1951, J. Linn. Soc. London, Zool., 42: 18. Leiopelmatidae placed on the official List of Family-Group Names in Zoology by Opinion 1071, Anonymous, 1977, Bull. Zool. Nomencl., 33: 167.
Leiopelmatinae — Kuhn, 1965, Die Amphib.: 86; Dubois, 2005, Alytes, 23: 8; Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 126.
Liopelmoidea — Laurent, 1967, Acta Zool. Lilloana, 22: 207.
Leiopelmatoidia — Dubois, 2005, Alytes, 23: 8. Epifamily. Treated as a superfamily with this spelling by Fouquette and Dubois, 2014, Checklist N.A. Amph. Rept.: 255.
Leiopelmatoidea — Dubois, 2005, Alytes, 23: 8; Zhang, Liang, Hillis, Wake, and Cannatella, 2013, Mol. Biol. Evol., 30: 1903.
Common Names
New Zealand Frogs (Vitt and Caldwell, 2014, Herpetology, 4th Ed.: 472).
Distribution
New Zealand.
Comment
See Dubois, 1984, Mem. Mus. Natl. Hist. Nat. Paris, A—Zool., 131: 1–64, for discussion of family-group nomenclature. Fawcett and Smith, 1971, Bull. Zool. Nomencl., 28: 50–52, and Fawcett and Smith, 1971, Great Basin Nat., 31: 261–264, provided accounts of the nomenclature including the correct spelling and use of the family name. Savage, 1973, in Vial (ed.), Evol. Biol. Anurans: 354, recognized Ascaphidae for Ascaphus, leaving only Leiopelma in this family. Green and Cannatella, 1993, Ethol. Ecol. Evol., 5: 233–245, and Ford and Cannatella, 1993, Herpetol. Monogr., 7: 94–117, discussed reasons for the dissociation of this group from Ascaphus. Frost, Grant, Faivovich, Bain, Haas, Haddad, de Sá, Channing, Wilkinson, Donnellan, Raxworthy, Campbell, Blotto, Moler, Drewes, Nussbaum, Lynch, Green, and Wheeler, 2006, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 297, discussed why Leiopelma and Ascaphus should be associated and found this inclusive taxon to sit phylogenetically as the sister taxon of all other frogs, as did Roelants, Gower, Wilkinson, Loader, Biju, Guillaume, Moriau, and Bossuyt, 2007, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 104: 887–892. Bossuyt and Roelants, 2009, in Hedges and Kumar (eds.), Timetree of Life: 357–364, expanding on their 2007 phylogenetic analysis of frogs reported suggested that on the basis of time of divergence that Leiopelmatidae and Ascaphidae should be considered separate families, having diverged likely in the Triassic. See also Daugherty, Bell, Adams, and Maxson, 1981, New Zealand J. Zool., 8: 543–550, Green, Sharbel, Hitchmough, and Daugherty, 1989, Z. Zool. Syst. Evolutionsforsch., 27: 65–79, and Worthy, 1987, J. R. Soc. New Zealand, 17: 201–251, for phylogenetic evidence and discussion. Bell, 1982, in Newman (ed.), New Zealand Wildlife Serv. Occas Publ., 2: 27–89, provided a summary of the taxonomy of the species in the group and their distribution. See comment under Rhinophrynidae. Blackburn, Bickford, Diesmos, Iskandar, and Brown, 2010, PLoS One, 5 (8: e 12090): 1–8, suggested on molecular grounds that Ascaphus and Leiopelma form a monophyletic group with the most recent common ancestor in the Cretaceous. Irisarri, San Mauro, Green, and Zardoya, 2010, Mitochondrial DNA, 21: 173–182, found Leiopelmatidae (sensu lato) to be monophyletic on the basis of DNA study. Pyron and Wiens, 2011, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 61: 543–583, confirmed the placement of Ascaphus as the sister taxon of Leiopelma and, following Roelants and Bossuyt, 2009, regarded the two genera as representing coordinate familes. See Dubois, 1984, Mem. Mus. Natl. Hist. Nat. Paris, A—Zool., 131: 1–64, for discussion of family-group nomenclature. Bossuyt and Roelants, 2009, in Hedges and Kumar (eds.), Timetree of Life: 357–364, expanding on their 2007 phylogenetic analysis of frogs reported suggested that Leiopelmatidae and Ascaphidae should be considered separate families, having diverged likely in the Triassic. See comment under Rhinophrynidae. Blackburn and Wake, 2011, In Zhang (ed.), Zootaxa, 3148: 39–55, briefly reviewed the taxonomic history of this taxon and regarded the two living genera as constituting distinct monotypic families although this redundancy is not required for classificatory efficiency. Vitt and Caldwell, 2014, Herpetology, 4th Ed., provided a summary of life history, diagnosis, and taxonomy. Blotto, Pereyra, Grant, and Faivovich, 2020, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 443: 30–31, suggested morphological synapomorphies from hand morphology for Alytidae + Leiopelmatidae.
Contained taxa (3 sp.):
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