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

Hylophorbus rufescens Macleay, 1878

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Microhylidae > Subfamily: Asterophryinae > Genus: Hylophorbus > Species: Hylophorbus rufescens

Hylophorbus rufescens Macleay, 1878, Proc. Linn. Soc. New South Wales, 2: 136. Holotype: AMS R30826, according to Cogger, 1979, Rec. Aust. Mus., 32: 179; Fry, 1913, Mem. Queensland Mus., 2: 47, reported the type as being in the QM. Type locality: "Katow" (=Mawatta), near Daru, Western Province, Papua New Guinea.

Metopostira ocellata Méhely, 1901, Termés. Füzetek, 24: 190, 239. Syntypes: MNH (destroyed according to Zweifel, 1972, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 148: 449) and NHMW 19829 (3 specimens) (according to Häupl and Tiedemann, 1978, Kat. Wiss. Samml. Naturhist. Mus. Wien, 2: 25, and Häupl, Tiedemann, and Grillitsch, 1994, Kat. Wiss. Samml. Naturhist. Mus. Wien, 9: 29), and MZUT An505 (1 specimen) (according to Gavetti and Andreone, 1993, Cat. Mus. Reg. Sci. Nat., Torino, 10: 113). Type locality: "Sattelbergen" [sic, p 190) and "Sattleberg" (p. 239), Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea.

Metopostira macra Van Kampen, 1906, Nova Guinea, 5: 167. Holotype: RMNH 4631, according to Zweifel, 1972, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 148: 449; holotype is ZMA and lost according to Van Tuijl, 1995, Bull. Zool. Mus. Univ. Amsterdam, 14: 128. Type locality: "Am Moso und Tami", (= Mosso River), Papua New Guinea. Synonymy (with Metopstira ocellata) by Parker, 1934, Monogr. Frogs Fam. Microhylidae: 69. Synonymy with Hylophorbus rufescens) by Zweifel, 1972, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 148: 427.

Hylophorbus ocellatus — Van Kampen, 1919, Bijdr. Dierkd., 21: 54.

Phrynomantis ocellatus — Noble, 1926, Am. Mus. Novit., 212: 20, by implication.

Phrynomantis rufescens — Noble, 1926, Am. Mus. Novit., 212: 20, by implication.

Asterophrys rufescens — Parker, 1934, Monogr. Frogs Fam. Microhylidae: 62; Loveridge, 1948, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., 101: 416; Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 418.

Hylophorbus rufescens rufescens — Zweifel, 1972, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 148: 449.

Common Names

Red Mawatta Frogs (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 90).

Distribution

New Guinea and nearby islands.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Indonesia, Indonesia - Papua Region, Papua New Guinea

Comment

Zweifel, 1972, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 148: 411-546, recognized three subspecies, two of them insular, of which two are now recognized as separate species: Hylophorbus extimus and Hylophorbus myopicus. See brief accounts (sensu lato) by Menzies, 1976, Handb. Common New Guinea Frogs: 50, and Menzies, 2006, Frogs New Guinea & Solomon Is.: 251. Oliver, Rittmeyer, Kraus, Richards, and Austin, 2013, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 67 : 600–607, confirmed the status of this as a complex, with some populations more closely related to Hylophorbus richardsi among other species than other populations of nominal conspecifics. Ferreira, Oliver, Kraus, Günther, Richards, Tjaturadi, Arida, Hamidy, Riyanto, Trilaksono, Thébaud, and Fouquet, 2025, Frontiers Biogeograph., 18(e137988): 1–15, suppl. files, suggested that the nominal species is a complex on the basis of molecular and acoustic data.

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