Rhinatrematidae Nussbaum, 1977

Class: Amphibia > Order: Gymnophiona > Family: Rhinatrematidae
14 species

Rhinatrematidae Nussbaum, 1977, Occas. Pap. Mus. Zool. Univ. Michigan, 682: 3. Type genus: Rhinatrema Duméril and Bibron, 1841.

Rhinatrematoides — Lescure, Renous, and Gasc, 1986, Mem. Soc. Zool. France, 43: 158. Hyperfamily.

Rhinatrematoidea — Lescure, Renous, and Gasc, 1986, Mem. Soc. Zool. France, 43: 158. Superfamily.

Rhinatremoidae — Lescure, Renous, and Gasc, 1986, Mem. Soc. Zool. France, 43: 158. Epifamily.

Common Names

Beaked Caecilians (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 25).

American Tailed Caecilians (Vitt and Caldwell, 2009, Herpetology, 3rd Ed.: 417).

Distribution

Northern South America.

Comment

Considered the sister-taxon of all other caecilians by Nussbaum, 1979, Occas. Pap. Mus. Zool. Univ. Michigan, 687; Wilkinson, 1997, Biol. Rev. Cambridge Philos. Soc., 72: 423-470; San Mauro, Gower, Oommen, Wilkinson, and Zardoya, 2004, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 33: 413-427; 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; and Roelants, Gower, Wilkinson, Loader, Biju, Guillaume, Moriau, and Bossuyt, 2007, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 104: 887-892; Wilkinson and Nussbaum, 2006, In Exbrayat (ed.), Reprod. Biol. Phylog. Gymnophiona: 39-78. Pyron and Wiens, 2011, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 61: 543-583 (see comment in Amphibia record) confirmed Rhinatrematidae as the sister taxon of all other living caecilians. Blackburn and Wake, 2011, In Zhang (ed.), Zootaxa, 3148: 39-55, briefly reviewed the taxonomic history of this taxon. San Mauro, Gower, Cotton, Zardoya, Wilkinson, and Massingham, 2012, Syst. Biol., 61: 661-674, confirmed the placement of Rhinatrematidae as the sister taxon of all other caecilians. Maddin, Russell, and Anderson, 2012, Zool. J. Linn. Soc., 166: 160-201, reported on the braincase of the family and confirmed its phylogenetic placement. Vitt and Caldwell, 2014, Herpetology, 4th Ed., provided a summary of range, diagnosis, life history, and taxonomy. 

Contained taxa (14 sp.):

Amazops Wilkinson, Reynolds, and Jacobs, 2021 (1 sp.)
Epicrionops Boulenger, 1883 (7 sp.)
Rhinatrema Duméril and Bibron, 1841 (6 sp.)

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