Phyllomedusidae Günther, 1858

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Phyllomedusidae
67 species

Phyllomedusidae Günther, 1858, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1858: 346. Type genus: Phyllomedusa Wagler, 1830.

Phyllomedusinae — Miranda-Ribeiro, 1926, Arq. Mus. Nac., Rio de Janeiro, 27: 64.

Pithecopinae Lutz, 1969, Acta Zool. Lilloana, 24: 274. Type genus: Pithecopus Cope, 1866. Synonymy by acclamation inasmuch as Bokermann, 1966, Lista Anot. Local. Tipo Anf. Brasil.: 83, and Duellman, 1968, Univ. Kansas Publ. Mus. Nat. Hist., 18: 6, treated Pithecopus as a synonym of Phyllomedusa, and this remained generally accepted. 

Phyllomedusidae — Bossuyt and Roelants, 2009, in Hedges and Kumar (eds.), Timetree of Life: 359; Duellman, Marion, and Hedges, 2016, Zootaxa, 4104: 32; Donnellan, Mahony, Esquerré, Brennan, Price, Lemmon, Lemmon, Günther, Monis, Bertozzi, Keogh, Shea, and Richards, 2025, Zool. J. Linn. Soc., 204(2: zlaf015): 31.

Agalychnini Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 195. Type genus: Agalychnis Cope, 1864. Tribe. 

Cruziohylini Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 196. Type genus: Cruziohyla Faivovich et al., 2005. Tribe. 

Phrynomedusini Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 196. Type genus: Phrynomedusa Miranda-Ribeiro, 1923. Tribe. 

Phyllomedusini —  Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 197. Tribe. 

Phasmahylina Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 197. Type genus: Phasmahyla Cruz, 1991. Tribe. 

Phyllomedusinia —  Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 197. Infratribe. 

Pithecopodinia —  Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 197. Infratribe. 

Common Names

None noted.

Distribution

Tropical Mexico to Argentina.

Comment

See comment under Hylidae for access to relevant literature. Frogs referred to this taxon (trending towards being treated as a family by most recent workers, but still controversially at that rank) possess distinctive morphological, biochemical, behavioral, and reproductive features (Duellman, 1968, Univ. Kansas Publ. Mus. Nat. Hist., 18: 1–10). Bagnara and Ferris, 1973, J. Exp. Biol., 190: 367–372, suggested that similar melanosomes in some Phyllomedusa and some Litoria might be indicative of a close relationship between Phyllomedusinae and Pelodryadinae. The immunological evidence of Maxson, 1976, Experientia, 32: 1149–1150, did not refute such a relationship, but suggested that the divergence was not recent. Osteological and myological evidence of Tyler and Davies, 1978, Herpetologica, 34: 219–224, does not refute such a hypothesized relationship (D.C. Cannatella In Duellman, 1985, in Frost (ed.), Amph. Species World: 197). Savage, 2002, Amph. Rept. Costa Rica: 277–288, provided a key to and accounts for the species of Costa Rica. Faivovich, Haddad, Garcia, Frost, Campbell, and Wheeler, 2005, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 294: 111–118, discussed the generic taxonomy of Phyllomedusinae and demonstrated a sister taxon relationship with Pelodryadinae. Bossuyt and Roelants, 2009, in Hedges and Kumar (eds.), Timetree of Life: 357–364, regarded this taxon as a family, Phyllomedusidae, based on its antiquity of divergence from Pelodryadidae and Hylidae. Faivovich, Haddad, Baêta, Jungfer, Álvares, Brandão, Sheil, Barrientos, Barrio-Amorós, Cruz, and Wheeler, 2010, Cladistics, 26: 227–261, reported on the phylogenetics of the group and provided a revision. Pyron and Wiens, 2011, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 61: 543–583, confirmed the results of Faivovich et al., 2010, but retained a paraphyletic Hylomantis rather than accepting the synonymy of Hylomantis and Pachymedusa with Agalychnis. Köhler, 2011, Amph. Cent. Am.: 196–204, provided a key to the genera and species of Central America and provided a map and photograph of this species. See comment under Hylidae of which this taxon is widely considered a subfamily. Schmid, Steinlein, Haaf, Feichtinger, Guttenbach, Bogart, Gruber, Kasahara, Kakampuy, del Pino, Carrillo, Romero-Carvajal, Mahony, King, Duellman, and Hedges, 2018, Schmid, Bogart, and Hedges (eds.), Arboranan Frogs: 1–325, reported on the cytogenetics of Hylidae, Pelodryadidae, and Phyllomedusidae (now treated as subfamilies in ASW). Röhr, Camurugi, Paterno, Gehara, Juncá, Álvares, Brandão, and Garda, 2020, Canad. J. Zool., 98: 495–504, reported on the evolution and causes of variability of advertisement call of the Brazilian species of Pithecopus and Phyllomedusa. Elias-Costa, Araujo-Vieira, and Faivovich, 2021, Cladistics, 37: 498–517, discussed the evolution of submandibular musculature optimized on the tree of Jetz and Pyron, 2018, Nature Ecol. & Evol., 2: 850–858, which provided morphological synapomorphies of this taxon. Almeida-Silva, Servino, Pontes-Nogueira, and Sawaya, 2024, PeerJ, 12(e17232): 1–29, reported on molecular phylogeny and biogeography of the group. 

Contained taxa (67 sp.):

Agalychnis Cope, 1864 (14 sp.)
Callimedusa Duellman, Marion, and Hedges, 2016 (6 sp.)
Cruziohyla Faivovich, Haddad, Garcia, Frost, Campbell, and Wheeler, 2005 (3 sp.)
Hylomantis Peters, 1873 "1872" (2 sp.)
Phasmahyla Cruz, 1991 (8 sp.)
Phrynomedusa Miranda-Ribeiro, 1923 (6 sp.)
Phyllomedusa Wagler, 1830 (16 sp.)
Pithecopus Cope, 1866 (12 sp.)

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