Pyxicephalidae Bonaparte, 1850

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Pyxicephalidae
85 species

Pyxicephalina Bonaparte, 1850, Conspect. Syst. Herpetol. Amph.: 1 p. Type genus: Pyxicephalus Tschudi, 1838.

Phrynopsinae Noble, 1931, Biol. Amph.: 518. Type genus: Phrynopsis Pfeffer, 1893 (= Pyxicephalus). Synonymy by Loveridge, 1936, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., 79: 369–430; Laurent, 1946, Rev. Zool. Bot. Afr., 39: 337.

Cacosterninae Noble, 1931, Biol. Amph.: 540. Type genus: Cacosternum Boulenger, 1887. Given precedence over Hemimantidae Hoffmann, 1878, and placed on the Official List of Family-Group Names in Zoology, by Opinion 1921, Anonymous, 1999, Bull. Zool. Nomencl., 56: 96–100. Junior subjective synonym of Phynobatrachinae by action of First Revisor, Dubois, 1994, Bull. Zool. Nomencl., 51: 240–246.

Tomopternini Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 56. Type genus: Tomopterna Duméril and Bibron, 1841.

PyxicephaliniDubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 66.

PyxicephalinaeDubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 317; Dubois, 2005, Alytes, 23: 17.

TomopterninaeDubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 336; Scott, 2005, Cladistics, 21: 528.

Strongylopinae Scott, 2005, Cladistics, 21: 528. Type genus: Strongylopus Tschudi, 1838.

PyxicephalidaeFrost, 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: 240.

Pyxicephaloidae — Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 231. Epifamily. 

Cacosternidae — Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 232.

Cacosternini — Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 233. Tribe. 

Cacoternina — Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 233. Subtribe. 

Poyntoniina Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 233. Type genus: Poyntonia Channing and Boycott, 1989. Subtribe. 

Natalobatrachini Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 233. Type genus: Natalobatrachus Hewitt, 1912. 

Common Names

None noted.

Distribution

Subsaharan Africa.

Comment

Laurent, 1951, Rev. Zool. Bot. Afr., 45: 120, believed the components of this group to be derived from Raninae (Ranidae of this catalog). Until redelimited by Dubois, 2005, Alytes, 23, to be the "southern African clade" discovered by van der Meijden, Vences, Hoegg, and Meyer, 2005, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 37: 674–685, Pyxicephalinae was composed solely of Aubria and Pyxicephalus. 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: 136, provided additional terminal taxa and evidence to confirm the findings of van der Meijden, Vences, Hoegg, and Meyer, 2005, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 37. Scott, 2005, Cladistics, 21: 526, on the basis of mtDNA and morphological data suggested that Pyxicephalus + Aubria is imbedded within the dicroglossines and on this basis she considered Dicroglossinae and Pyxicephalinae to be synonyms, with Pyxicephalinae being the older name. Scott, 2005, Cladistics, 21: 528, regarded Afrana and Strongylopus to form a subfamily, Strongylopinae, isolated from Cacosterninae and Tomopterninae. Recognition of Tomopterninae is consistent with the phylogenetic results of 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: 136, but Strongylopinae of Scott (2005) is inconsistent. Bossuyt, Brown, Hillis, Cannatella, and Milinkovitch, 2006, Syst. Biol., 55: 579–594, corroborated the monophyly of this group and provided results consistent with the recognition of Cacosterninae and Pyxicephalinae sensu Frost et al. (2006) and Roelants, Gower, Wilkinson, Loader, Biju, Guillaume, Moriau, and Bossuyt, 2007, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 104: 887–892, recognized Pyxicephalidae and provided results largely congruent with Frost et al. (2006). Wiens, Sukumaran, Pyron, and Brown, 2009, Evolution, 63: 1217–1231, also corroborated this group and the results of Frost et al. (2006), while treating the group as Pyxicephalinae of Ranidae (Natatanura of Frost et al., 2006). Vitt and Caldwell, 2009, Herpetology, 3rd Ed.: 474–475, provided a general taxonomic account and map as part of a much more general and extensive overview of amphibian biology. Bossuyt and Roelants, 2009, in Hedges and Kumar (eds.), Timetree of Life: 357–364, considered this taxon a distinct family based on its Mesozoic origin. van der Meijden, Crottini, Tarrant, Turner, and Vences, 2011, Afr. J. Herpetol., 60: 1–12, and Pyron and Wiens, 2011, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 61: 543–583, provided a phylogenetic analysis based on molecular evidence that corroborated the two subfamilies and much of which had been published based on molecular evidence previously. Blackburn and Wake, 2011, In Zhang (ed.), Zootaxa, 3148: 39–55, briefly reviewed the taxonomic history of this taxon. Vitt and Caldwell, 2014, Herpetology, 4th Ed., provided a summary of life history, diagnosis, and taxonomy. Channing, Rödel, and Channing, 2012, Tadpoles of Africa: 317–361, provided information on comparative larval morphology. Bittencourt-Silva, Conradie, Siu-Ting, Tolley, Channing, Cunningham, Farooq, Menegon, and Loader, 2016, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol.: 89–102, reported on molecular phylogenetics within the family. Yuan, Zhang, Raxworthy, Weisrock, Hime, Jin, Lemmon, Lemmon, Holland, Kortyna, Zhou, Peng, Che, and Prendini, 2018, Natl. Sci. Rev., Beijing, 6: 10–14, reported on phylogenetics and biogeography as an element of Natatanura.    

Contained taxa (85 sp.):

External links:

Please note: these links will take you to external websites not affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History. We are not responsible for their content.