Hoplophryninae Noble, 1931

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Microhylidae > Subfamily: Hoplophryninae
3 species

Hoplophryninae Noble, 1931, Biol. Amph.: 538-539. Type genus: Hoplophryne Barbour and Loveridge, 1928. Synonymy by Parker, 1934, Monogr. Frogs Fam. Microhylidae: 196.

Hoplophrynidae — Bossuyt and Roelants, 2009, in Hedges and Kumar (eds.), Timetree of Life: 358.

Common Names

None noted.

Distribution

Usambara, Uluguru, Nguru, and Magrotto mountains, Tanzania.

Comment

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: 229, discussed the taxonomic issues and provisionally retained these African taxa in Melanobatrachinae. Van Bocxlaer, Roelants, Biju, Nagaraju, and Bossuyt, 2006, PLoS One, 1: 1-6, provided evidence that Hoplophryne (their exemplar of this subfamilial taxon) is phylogenetically distant from Melanobatrachus and possibly the sister taxon of all other microhylids, with the exception of Phrynomantis. Savage, 1973, in Vial (ed.), Evol. Biol. Anurans: 355, considered; without discussion, hoplophrynines to be more closely related to Phrynomerinae. Parker, 1934, Monogr. Frogs Fam. Microhylidae: 196) considered Hoplophryninae of Noble, 1931, Biol. Amph.: 538-539, part of Melanobatrachinae, although Laurent, 1986, in Grassé and Delsol (eds.), Traite de Zool., 14: 744, Dubois, 1984, Mem. Mus. Natl. Hist. Nat. Paris, A—Zool., 131: 1-64, and Dubois, 2005, Alytes, 23: 15, did not accept this, without discussion. Bossuyt and Roelants, 2009, in Hedges and Kumar (eds.), Timetree of Life: 357-364, considered this taxon a distinct family based on its suggested Mesozoic origin. Pyron and Wiens, 2011, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 61: 543-583, in their molecular study, suggested Hoplophryninae to be the sister taxon of Cophylinae.

Contained taxa (3 sp.):

Hoplophryne Barbour and Loveridge, 1928 (2 sp.)
Parhoplophryne Barbour and Loveridge, 1928 (1 sp.)

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