- What is Amphibian Species of the World?
- How to cite
- How to use
- Structure of the taxonomic records
- Running log of additions and corrections, 2024
- Logs of changes and additions, 2014–2023
- What is the right name?
- Curator's blog
- History of the project, 1980 to 2024
- Comments on amphibian taxonomy relating to versions 3.0 to 6.2 (2004 to 2024)
- Scientific Nomenclature and its Discontents: Comments by Frost on Rules and Philosophy of Taxonomy, Ranks, and Their Applications
- Contributors, online editions
- Contributors and reviewers for Amphibian Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (1985)
- Versions
- Museum abbreviations
- Links to useful amphibian systematic, conservation, collection management, informational, and/or regional sites
- Links to useful FREE library sites
- Copyright and terms of use
Links to useful amphibian systematic, conservation, collection management, informational, and/or regional sites
Amphibian Karyotype Data: https://evobir.shinyapps.io/AmphibianDB/. A database allowing access to karyotypic information on all species of amphibians for which these data have been published.
Amphibian Survival Alliance: https://www.amphibians.org/. A global conservation partnership that provides conservation news and access to conservation-related information and sites.
Amphibians of India: https://www.indianamphibians.org/ . Incomplete and difficult to use at the moment but clearly on a path to be an important resource about a very interesting fauna. Provides images, distribution, and habitat for a bit less than half of the Indian amphibian fauna.
AmphibiaWeb: http://www.amphibiaweb.org/. An important site for access to information on amphibian conservation, population declines, calls, images as well as other general information about amphibian species, directed at the informed public and conservation scientists. The taxonomy tends to run behind the community as do the species accounts with reference to the IUCN Red List.
AmphibiaWeb links to Conservation & Decline site: https://amphibiaweb.org/resources/decline_resources.html
AmphibiaWeb links to videos and frog calls: https://amphibiaweb.org/lists/sound.shtml and https://amphibiaweb.org/resources/frogcalls.html. Useful access to many recordings.
AmphibiaWeb Amphibian Biology Resources: https://amphibiaweb.org/resources/biology.html. Listing of a great number of links to specialized amphibian websites.
AmphibiaChina: http://www.amphibiachina.org/ (Mandarin); https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&u=http://www.amphibiachina.org/&prev=search (English translated page). An important website dedicated to providing information on the Chinese amphibian fauna.
Anfíbios de Colombia: http://www.batrachia.com/. One of the very best and up-to-date and information-dense websites for one country and because Colombia is a serious hot-spot of amphibian diversity this is a very useful site. I would have linked from the ASW Colombian species pages, but the linkage grammar makes it particularly difficult for groups where species are added frequently.
Anfibios de Ecuador: https://bioweb.bio/faunaweb/amphibiaweb (splash page); https://bioweb.bio/faunaweb/amphibiaweb/BusquedaEspecies (query page). A very up-to-date and complete site on the amphibians of Ecuador, one of the most biodiverse countries in the world. Species records are linked from the relevant species records in ASW. Probably the best regional site of which I am aware.
Arctos: https://arctos.database.museum/home.cfm (splash page). Arctos is a USA ongoing effort to integrate access to specimen data, collection-management tools, and external resources on the internet. Similar to GBIF and VertNet specimen data access, this valuable site ties together collection data for most of the important herpetology collections in North America. Of great utility to biodiversity specialists but likely to be over-interpreted by naive informaticists. Overlaps and collaborates with VertNet and GBIF.
Australia's Native Frogs: https://australian.museum/learn/animals/frogs/ . An excellent basic source of information from the Australian Museum about Australian frogs with citizen-science-based distribution maps.
CalPhoto Images: http://calphotos.berkeley.edu. A great resource for images, maintained by Biodiversity Sciences Technology (BSCIT), part of the Berkeley Natural History Museums at the University of California, Berkeley.
CaribHerp: http://www.caribherp.org/ . Great source of images and maps for the species on the islands of the Caribbean.
Catalogue of Life: http://www.catalogueoflife.org/. A site the provides taxonomic information on all taxa of life. Useful for rapid look-ups of currently accepted names and spelling and because it is funded by various European sites, not subject to the vagaries of funding by U.S. National Science Foundation and therefore likely to grow as an important resource.
Dendrowiki: http://www.dendrowiki.org/alle.html. A site providing images for species of dendrobatoid frogs (Aromobatidae and Dendrobatidae).
EncicloVido: http://enciclovida.mx/. An access point to online information about the animals of Mexico.
Encyclopedia of Life (Amphibia page): http://www.eol.org/pages/1552. On the way to becoming an amazing resource for information on all species of life but currently with a confusing public interface. The tie-in to the Biodiversity Heritage Library should make this site very useful for professionals.
Fonozoo: http://www.fonozoo.com/fnz_ranas_mundo2_eng.php. A great source of frog calls.
FrogID: https://www.frogid.net.au/. A citizen-scientist project developed by the Australian Museum based upon a smartphone app that allows users to record frog calls, which are then identified to species and used to map frog locations across Australia. FrogID is a growing database of frog localities and frog call audio, and the app and website also include a field guide to the frogs of Australia. Pretty much a fabulous resource.
Frogs of Australia: https://frogs.org.au/frogs/index.html. A good source for photographs and range maps. Appears to lag substantially behind the state of systematics due, I think, to the Australian taxonomists apparently thinking non-monophyly is a smaller problem than instability of nomenclature.
Frogs of Borneo: http://frogsofborneo.org/. A good source for information and images of the species of East Malaysia on Borneo.
Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF, Amphibia page): https://www.gbif.org/. Search on species names for range maps and access to dot maps and links to specimen several databases and websites. Useful for professionals with reasonable caution inasmuch as IDs in major collection often need to be verified. An exceedingly useful website for professionals in conservation biology and systematics. Collaborates with VertNet and Arctos.
Google: http://www.google.com/. The fastest way to locate information, albeit disorganized, on any taxon is to search for it on Google. But, like any unvetted information source, errors exist.
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/. A more refined version of Google for accessing primary and secondary scientific literature. I use it all of the time.
Herpetofauna Mexicana: https://www.facebook.com/groups/herpmex/. Discussion group of the Mexican herpetofauna.
Herpetological Taxonomy and Systematics: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Herpetological-taxonomy-and-systematics/751055144919750. A source of recently named species and taxonomic change in herpetology. Does a good job of reporting new taxa.
HerpMapper: http://herpmapper.org/. A citizen scientist site designed to gather and share information about reptile and amphibian observations/photographs/range maps from across the planet. Requires registration to use effectively but individual species can be searched by using the format http://herpmapper.org/records?taxon=Genus+species.
iNaturalist: https://www.inaturalist.org/. A citizen scientist site that does a great job of keeping up with amphibian taxonomy and it has also allowed me in some cases (like Incilius nebulifer) to check photographs of extralimital records. While identifications should be used with reasonable caution, the system provides considerable feedback from users to correct misinformation. I am impressed.
ITIS (Integrated Taxonomic Information System: ITIS Amphibia record). ITIS is a United States Department of Agriculture system for storing information on all organismal names. ITIS nomenclature is employed by U.S. Federal agencies for purposes of communication among agencies and, in some cases, apparently for purposes of permitting. A useful site.
IUCN Red List: https://www.iucnredlist.org/. The website that provides information on conservation status and maps drawn by regional experts for many species of amphibians. This is a canonical site for conservation information although it lags behind the systematics community due to financial and time constraints, given that their teams of experts have set for themselves a very high bar of quality. See Ficetola, Rondinini, Bonardi, Padoa-Schioppa, and Angulo, 2014, J. Biogeograph., 14: 211–221, for discussion of accuracy.
IUCN SSC Amphibian Specialist Group: https://www.iucn-amphibians.org/ . Access to various sites addressing amphibian conservation and the people on point for these activities.
MacCaulay Library (Cornell Lab of Ornithology): https://search.macaulaylibrary.org/catalog?searchField=animals. Many frog calls available (ex: Incilius valliceps).
Map of Life: https://mol.org/. An mapping program for the planet's biodiversity. Search for species' maps at https://mol.org/species/. It is not clear to me how accurate the maps are since they do not seem to be vetted by experts.
Mikko's Phylogeny Archive: http://www.helsinki.fi/~mhaaramo/metazoa/deuterostoma/chordata/amphibia/lissamphibia/lissamphibia.html. A useful and accurate site for access to phylogenetic information and comparisons of different taxonomic arrangements.
Translations of the Scientific Names of the Reptiles and Amphibians and Amphibians of North America: http://ebeltz.net/herps/etymain.html. Lots of interesting and helpful biographical and etymological information on USA and Canadian amphibian and reptile names from the indefatigable Ellin Beltz.
VertNet: http://portal.vertnet.org/. Similar to GBIF and Arctos specimen data access, this valuable site ties together collection data for most of the important herpetology collections in North America. Of great utility to biodiversity specialists but likely to be over-interpreted by naive informaticists. Overlaps with Arctos and GBIF and (above).
Wikipedia: http://www.wikipedia.org. As of 22 December 2023, all taxon records in ASW link out to Wikipedia records (see bottom tier of links in each ASW taxon record). While this will occasionally resullt in null results, Wikipedia has done an astonishingly good job of rendering well-written summaries about almost all of the taxa addressed in ASW.
Wikispecies: http://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page. A website that intends to have a page for every taxon. Unfortunately, like Wikipedia, although it is improving, a significant amount of the content related to amphibian systematics occasionally contains records that are either poorly researched or is simply reflect misinformation by people with big political agendas.