Cophixalus Boettger, 1892

Common Names

Rainforest Frogs (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 88).

Distribution

Moluccan Is.; New Guinea; northeastern Queensland, Australia.

Comment

Menzies, Tyler, and Zweifel, 1980, Bull. Zool. Nomencl., 36: 231–235, showed that the type species (by monotypy) of Cophixalus Boettger, Cophixalus geislerorum, belongs to the genus Oreophryne as these genera currently are understood. In response to the petition of Menzies, Tyler, and Zweifel, 1980, Bull. Zool. Nomencl., 36: 231–235, the International Commission of Zoological Nomenclature, Opinion 1266, Anonymous, 1984, Bull. Zool. Nomencl., 41: 12–14, designated Sphenophryne verrucosa Boulenger, 1898, as the type species of Cophixalus and placed Cophixalus on the Official List of Generic Names in Zoology. Australian species taxonomy and literature reviewed by Cogger, Cameron, and Cogger, 1983, Zool. Cat. Aust., Amph. Rept., 1: 52–53. See Zweifel, 1985, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 182: 265–388, for review. Hoskin, 2004, Aust. J. Zool., 52: 237–269, provided a molecular tree of the Australian species as well as revisory comments on several species. Köhler and Günther, 2008, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 47: 353–365, suggested on the basis of molecular evidence that Cophixalus is polyphyletic with (1) Cophixalus sphagnicolus being the sister taxon of Albericus + Choerophryne and (2) Cophixalus balbus being the sister taxon of Barygenys and a group containing at least Cophixalus humicola and Cophixalus tridactylus forming the sister taxon of that inclusive group. Pyron and Wiens, 2011, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 61: 543–583, came to somewhat different results. Hoskin, 2008, Mem. Queensland Mus., 52: 233–237, provided a key to the species of Australia. Kraus, 2010, ZooKeys, 48: 39–59, noted the lack of evidence for monophyly of Cophixalus and discussed this in light of recognition of other nominal genera. de Sá, Streicher, Sekonyela, Forlani, Loader, Greenbaum, Richards, and Haddad, 2012, BMC Evol. Biol., 12(241): 1–21, suggested on the basis of molecular evidence that Cophixalus is polyphyletic. Cogger, 2018, Rept. Amph. Australia, 7th ed.: 202–214, provided an identification key, accounts, photographs, and distribution maps for the species of Australia. Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 418, found Cophixalus to be polyphyletic in several pieces throughout the asterophryine tree. As a result of this and other chaotic generic boundaries, the authors placed all asterophryine genera, except for Gastrophrynoides into the synonymy of Asterophrys.  

Contained taxa (71 sp.):

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