Amerana muscosa (Camp, 1917)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Ranidae > Genus: Amerana > Species: Amerana muscosa

Rana boylii muscosa Camp, 1917, Univ. California Publ. Zool., 17: 118. Holotype: MVZ 771, by original designation. Type locality: "Arroyo Seco Cañon, at about 1300 feet altitude, near Pasadena, [Los Angeles County,] California", USA.

Rana muscosa — Zweifel, 1955, Univ. California Publ. Zool., 54: 229. First revisor to choose priority over Rana boylii sierrae.

Rana (Rana) muscosa — Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 41–42, by implication; Fouquette and Dubois, 2014, Checklist N.A. Amph. Rept.: 396. 

Rana (Amerana) muscosa — Dubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 322; Dubois, 2006, C. R. Biol., Paris, 329: 830; Yuan, Zhou, Chen, Poyarkov, Chen, Jang-Liaw, Chou, Matzke, Iizuka, Min, Kuzmin, Zhang, Cannatella, Hillis, and Che, 2016, Syst. Biol., 65: 835.

Rana (Laurasiarana, Amerana) muscosa — Hillis and Wilcox, 2005, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 34: 311, by implication; see Dubois, 2006, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 42: 317–330, and Hillis, 2007, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 42: 331–338, for discussion. Invalid name formulation under the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (1999) as discussed by Dubois, 2007, Cladistics, 23: 395.

Amerana muscosa — Fei, Ye, and Jiang, 2010, Herpetol. Sinica, 12: 37; Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 424. 

Common Names

San Bernardino Yellow-legged Frog (Schmidt, 1953, Check List N. Am. Amph. Rept., Ed. 6: 84; Conant, Cagle, Goin, Lowe, Neill, Netting, Schmidt, Shaw, Stebbins, and Bogert, 1956, Copeia, 1956: 176).

Sierra Madre Yellow-legged Frog (Storer, 1925, Univ. California Publ. Zool., 27: 43; Wright and Wright, 1933, Handb. Frogs Toads U.S. Canada: xi; Vredenburg, Bingham, Knapp, Morgan, Moritz, and Wake, 2007, J. Zool., London, 271: 370; Collins and Taggart, 2009, Standard Common Curr. Sci. Names N. Am. Amph. Turtles Rept. Crocodil., ed. 6: 9).

Southern Yellow-legged Frog (Slevin, 1928, Occas. Pap. California Acad. Sci., 16: 140).

Mountain Yellow-legged Frog (Collins, Huheey, Knight, and Smith, 1978, Herpetol. Circ., 7: 13; Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 108; Collins, 1997, Herpetol. Circ., 25: 13; Crother, Boundy, Campbell, de Queiroz, Frost, Highton, Iverson, Meylan, Reeder, Seidel, Sites, Taggart, Tilley, and Wake, 2001 "2000", Herpetol. Circ., 29: 15; Stebbins, 2003, Field Guide W. Rept. Amph., Ed. 3: 233).

Southern Mountain Yellow-legged Frog (Frost, McDiarmid, and Mendelson, 2008, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 37: 11; Frost, McDiarmid, Mendelson, and Green, 2012, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 39: 21; Frost, Lemmon, McDiarmid, and Mendelson, 2017, in Crother (ed.), Herpetol. Circ., 43: 19).

Distribution

Palomar Mountain (where now extinct) in San Diego County through the San Jacinto, San Bernardino and San Gabriel Mountains of Riverside, San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties in southern California. These formed four isolated clusters of montane populations. In addition, the species occurred as an isolated cluster of populations on Breckenridge Mountain (where now extinct), south of the Kern River in Kern County, and in the Sierra Nevada in Tulare, Inyo and Fresno counties, extending north to Mather Pass. Now extinct throughout former range except for the a few isolated population in the Sierra Nevada, California, USA. 

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: United States of America, United States of America - California

Endemic: United States of America, United States of America - California

Comment

See Zweifel, 1955, Univ. California Publ. Zool., 54: 207–292, and Zweifel, 1968, Cat. Am. Amph. Rept., 65: 1–2, for review (as including Rana sierrae). In the Rana boylii group of North American authors. In the Rana aurora group of Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 42, in the equivalent Section Amerana, subgenus Amerana of Dubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 322. (Although Amerana was shown by Hillis and Wilcox, 2005, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 34: 305, to be polyphyletic.) Stebbins, 2003, Field Guide W. Rept. Amph., Ed. 3: 233–234, provided a brief account, figure, and map (and who commented on the disappearance of this species from large areas of its former distribution). See comment under Rana sierrae. Vredenburg, Bingham, Knapp, Morgan, Moritz, and Wake, 2007, J. Zool., London, 271: 361–374, discussed the systematics of this species and its disappearance from large parts of its former range. See photograph, map, description of geographic range and habitat, and conservation status in Stuart, Hoffmann, Chanson, Cox, Berridge, Ramani, and Young, 2008, Threatened Amph. World: 508. Vredenburg, Fellers, and Davidson, 2005, in Lannoo (ed.), Amph. Declines: 563–566, and  Dodd, 2013, Frogs U.S. and Canada, 2 : 733–739, provided detailed accounts that summarized the literature of biology, range, and conservation.  Elliot, Gerhardt, and Davidson, 2009, Frogs and Toads of N. Am.: 250–253, provided an account, photos, and advertisement call. Altig and McDiarmid, 2015, Handb. Larval Amph. US and Canada: 244–245, provided an account of larval morphology and biology. Byrne, Rothstein, Smith, Kania, Knapp, Boiano, Briggs, Backlin, Fisher, and Rosenblum, 2024, Conserv. Genetics, 25: 591–606, discussed conservation units using multiple genomic methods.  

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