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Phyllomedusidae Günther, 1858
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.):
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