Search tool	Example of search string in box	What that means to the database
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	Hyl*	Will find all uses of "Hyl . . ." anywhere in a record: e.g., Hylarana, Hyla, Hylidae, Hylinae, Hylaedactyla.
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	*Hyla	Will find all uses of ". . . hyla" anywhere in a record: e.g., Hyla, Hylidae, Plectrohyla, Ptychadena hylaea, Adenomera hylaedactyla
	Hyla	Will find all records that contain stand-alone uses of Hyla: e.g., Hyla, Hyla arenicolor
Strings of words without quotation marks	Lithobates pipiens	Interprets this as "Lithobates OR pipiens" so will find the union of all records that contain either "Lithobates" or "pipiens": e.g., Lithobates omiltemanus, Hylorana pipiens
Strings of word with quotation marks	"Lithobates pipiens"	Interprets this as "Lithobates AND pipiens" so will return all records that have the character string "Lithobates pipiens" anywhere within a record: e.g., all members of the Lithobates pipiens complex.
AND statement. Means that the results of the search must include both words held together by an AND	Lithobates AND pipiens	Same as "Lithobates pipiens"
OR statement. Means that the results of the search will all records that have either of the terms held together by an OR	Lithobates OR "Costa Rica"	Recovers all records that contain the word "Lithobates" or "Costa Rica": 402 records inasmuch as this will include all records for the entire amphibian fauna of Costa Rica
Combining Boolean operators within the Basic Search box (AND, OR, NOT, quotation marks)	Lithobates AND "Costa Rica" NOT forreri	Recovers only records that contain the word Lithobates AND "Costa Rica", but excludes any record that contains the word "forreri" in any part of the record: 9 records
Printable HELP file

Search tool	Example of search string in box	What that means to the database
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	Hyl*	Will find all uses of "Hyl . . ." anywhere in a record: e.g., Hylarana, Hyla, Hylidae, Hylinae, Hylaedactyla.
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	*Hyla	Will find all uses of ". . . hyla" anywhere in a record: e.g., Hyla, Hylidae, Plectrohyla, Ptychadena hylaea, Adenomera hylaedactyla
Single word	Hyla	Will find all records that contain stand-alone uses of Hyla: e.g., Hyla, Hyla arenicolor
Strings of words without quotation marks	Lithobates pipiens	Interprets this as "Lithobates OR pipiens" so will find the union of all records that contain either "Lithobates" or "pipiens": e.g., Lithobates omiltemanus, Hylorana pipiens
Strings of word with quotation marks	"Lithobates pipiens"	Interprets this as "Lithobates AND pipiens" so will return all records that have the character string "Lithobates pipiens" anywhere within a record: e.g., all members of the Lithobates pipiens complex.
AND statement. Means that the results of the search must include both words held together by an AND	Lithobates AND pipiens	Same as "Lithobates pipiens"
OR statement. Means that the results of the search will all records that have either of the terms held together by an OR	Lithobates OR "Costa Rica"	Recovers all records that contain the word "Lithobates" or "Costa Rica": 402 records inasmuch as this will include all records for the entire amphibian fauna of Costa Rica
Combining Boolean operators within the Basic Search box (AND, OR, NOT, quotation marks)	Lithobates AND "Costa Rica" NOT forreri	Recovers only records that contain the word Lithobates AND "Costa Rica", but excludes any record that contains the word "forreri" in any part of the record: 9 records
Printable HELP file

Megophryinae (Bonaparte, 1850)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Megophryidae > Subfamily: Megophryinae

124 species

Megalophreidina Bonaparte, 1850, Conspect. Syst. Herpetol. Amph.: 1 p. Type genus: Megalophrys Wagler, 1830 (= Megophrys Kuhl and Van Hasselt, 1822).

Megalophryinae — Fejérváry, 1922 "1921", Arch. Naturgesch., Abt. A,, 87: 25.

Megophryinae — Noble, 1931, Biol. Amph.: 492; Delorme, Dubois, Grosjean, and Ohler, 2006, Alytes, 24: 15.

Megalophryninae — Tamarunov, 1964, in Orlov (ed.), Osnovy Paleontologii, 12: 129.

Megophryini — Dubois, 1980, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 49: 471; Delorme, Dubois, Grosjean, and Ohler, 2006, Alytes, 24: 15.

Megophryidae — Ford and Cannatella, 1993, Herpetol. Monogr., 7: 94–117.

Xenophryini Delorme, Dubois, Grosjean, and Ohler, 2006, Alytes, 24: 17. Type genus Xenophrys Günther, 1864.

English Names

Asian Spadefoot Toads (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 87; Li, Zhao, and Dong, 2010, Amph. Rept. Tibet: 22).

Distribution

Tropical Asia from India and Bhutan to China and south to the Sundas and the Philippines.

Comment

See discussion under Megophryidae and Megophrys. There is a substantial rank-disagreement regarding taxa within Megophryinae among authors. Mahony, Foley, Biju, and Teeling, 2017, Mol. Biol. Evol., 34: 744–771, provided the first comprehensive molecular tree of the group and placed all megophryines into one genus, Megophrys, with multiple subgenera. Deuti, Grosjean, Nicolas, Vasudevan, and Ohler, 2017, Alytes, 34: 20–48, provided a 5-genus taxonomy based on their tree. Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 413–414, provided a tree of megophryines and a 7-genus taxonomy based on less dense taxon sampling and evidence than was employed by Lyu, Zeng, Wang, Liu, Huang, Li, and Wang, 2021, Zootaxa, 4927: 9–40. DRF expects the controversy to go on for some time since the 1-genus (mostly in India) and 7-genus (mostly in China) working groups are active, essentially agree on the phylogenetic topology, and are not about to change their minds on which taxonomy is more useful. For secondary literature, choosing one or the other system will not be "wrong" in any scientific sense. Read "What is the right name?" (see column to left) for more clarity on what I mean here.

Contained taxa (124 sp.):

"Megophrys" dringi Inger, Stuebing, and Tan, 1995

"Megophrys" feii Yang, Wang, and Wang, 2018

Atympanophrys Tian and Hu, 1983 (4 sp.)

Boulenophrys Fei, Ye, and Jiang, 2016 (62 sp.)

Brachytarsophrys Tian and Hu, 1983 (7 sp.)

Megophrys Kuhl and Van Hasselt, 1822 (5 sp.)

Ophryophryne Boulenger, 1903 (7 sp.)

Pelobatrachus Beddard, 1908 "1907" (7 sp.)

Xenophrys Günther, 1864 (30 sp.)

External links:

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