Odontobatrachus

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Odontobatrachus
Odontobatrachus natator, female

Odontobatrachus natator , female

Systematics
Row : Land vertebrates (Tetrapoda)
without rank: Amphibians (Lissamphibia)
Order : Frog (anura)
Subordination : Neobatrachia
Family : Odontobatrachidae
Genre : Odontobatrachus
Scientific name of the  family
Odontobatrachidae
Barej , Schmitz , Günther , Loader , Mahlow & Rödel , 2014
Scientific name of the  genus
Odontobatrachus
Barej , Rödel , Loader & Schmitz , 2014
Odontobatrachus smithi from Guinea

Odontobatrachus is the only genus of the frog family Odontobatrachidae . It is common in West Africa and is counted among the rapids frogs that show adaptations to life in fast flowing waters.

features

The genus Odontobatrachus has some unusual tooth formations for frogs. On each of the two lower jaw bones there is a pointed, tusk-like extension. The upper jaw has two rows of pointed, backward curved teeth. Behind the choans are two small groups of palatal teeth that are close together. These characteristics and molecular genetic studies justified the establishment of a family for these frogs.

The type specimen of the genus, Odontobatrachus natator , had a head-trunk length of 55 millimeters. The skin on the back is densely granulated and provided with ridges or elongated warts. The color is brown on top, mostly covered with dark, black dots and light, olive-green to yellowish bands. The limbs are also banded. The ventral side is light, white to yellowish. The eardrum is inconspicuous, its diameter is only half that of the eye.

There are large webbed feet between the toes and fingers . The fingers are somewhat elongated, flat, with enlarged, heart-shaped adhesive discs. The first finger is shorter than the second. The length of the feet in this species is two fifths of the head-trunk length. The males have paired internal vocal sacs and oval glands on the undersides of the thighs.

Occurrence

Odontobatrachus is native to the rainforests of West Africa. In Sierra Leone , in the north of Liberia , in the west of the Ivory Coast and in the south of Guinea it occurs in hilly terrain and on wooded mountain ranges up to an altitude of 1400 meters. It is the first vertebrate family to be endemic to West Africa .

Way of life

Odontobatrachus lives in fast flowing waters and at waterfalls, where the tadpoles also develop. Because of their way of life, some very similar-looking frogs were put together as rapids frogs (English torrent frogs ) in a separate family Petropedetidae . It turned out, however, that these frogs are not as closely related in ancestral history as originally assumed. Therefore, the genus Indirana , which occurs in India, was spun off into its own family called Ranixalidae in 2006 . The genus Conraua received the rank of an independent family in 2011. After Arthroleptides moved to the newly created Arthroleptidae family , only the Petropedetes genus remained within the Petropedetidae . For the original as Petropedetes natator also in the genus Petropedetes classified petropedetes natator was in 2014 also built their own family.

Systematics

The type species Odontobatrachus natator was originally described as Petropedetes natator by the herpetologist Boulenger as early as 1905. In 2014 the species was classified in its own, then monotypical genus Odontobatrachus , for which a new family, the Odontobatrachidae, was established. The generic name Odontobatrachus comes from the Greek (όδούς, odous = tooth and βατραχοσ, batrachos = frog).

A molecular biological study from 2015 indicated a phylogenetic division of the species Odontobatrachus natator into five lines. These taxonomic units were described as separate species in another work.

species

Five types have been described:

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Michael F. Barej, Andreas Schmitz, Rainer Günther, Simon P. Loader, Kristin Mahlow & Mark-Oliver Rödel: The first endemic West African vertebrate family - a new anuran family highlighting the uniqueness of the Upper Guinean biodiversity hotspot. Frontiers in Zoology, 11, p. 8, 2014
  2. ^ George Albert Boulenger: Descriptions of new West-African frogs of the genera Petropedetes and Bulua. Annals and Magazine of Natural History, Series 7, 15, pp. 281-283, 1905, pp. 282
  3. ↑ a b Darrel R. Frost: Odontobatrachus Amphibian Species of the World, Version 6.0, American Museum of Natural History, 1998-2015, accessed August 14, 2015
  4. ↑ I. Van Bocxlaer, K. Roelants, SD Biju, J. Nagaraju, and F. Bossuyt: Late Cretaceous vicariance in Gondwanan amphibians. PLoS (Public Library of Science) One, 1, pp. 1-6, 2006
  5. ^ RA Pyron & JJ Wiens: A large-scale phylogeny of Amphibia including over 2800 species, and a revised classification of advanced frogs, salamanders, and caecilians. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 61, pp. 543-583, 2011
  6. ↑ Michael F. Barej, Johannes Penner, Andreas Schmitz, Mark-Oliver Rödel: Multiple genetic lineages challenge the monospecific status of the West African endemic frog-family Odontobatrachidae. BMC Evolutionary Biology, 15, p. 67 2015 doi : 10.1186 / s12862-015-0346-9
  7. ↑ Michael F. Barej, Andreas Schmitz, Johannes Penner, Joseph Doumbia, Laura Sandberger-Loua, Mareike Hirschfeld, Christian Brede, Mike Emmrich, N'Goran Germain Kouamé, Annika Hillers, Nono Legrand Gonwouo, Joachim Nopper, Patrick Joel Adeba, Mohamed Alhassane Bangoura, Ceri Gage, Gail Anderson, Mark-Oliver Rödel: Life in the spray zone - overlooked diversity in West African torrent-frogs (Anura, Odontobatrachidae, Odontobatrachus). Zoosystematics and Evolution 91, 2, pp. 115-149, July 2015 doi : 10.3897 / zse.91.5127

literature

  • Michael F. Barej, Andreas Schmitz, Rainer Günther, Simon P. Loader, K. Mahlow & Mark-Oliver Rödel: The first endemic West African vertebrate family - a new anuran family highlighting the uniqueness of the Upper Guinean biodiversity hotspot. Frontiers in Zoology, 11, p. 8, 2014 doi : 10.1186 / 1742-9994-11-8 ( PDF , first description of the family)
  • Michael F. Barej, Mark-Oliver Rödel, Simon P. Loader, Michele Menegon, Legrand Nono Gonwouo, Johannes Penner, Václav Gvoždík, Rainer Günther, Rayna C. Bell, Peter Nagel & Andreas Schmitz: Light shines through the spindrift - phylogeny of African torrent frogs (Amphibia, Anura, Petropedetidae) . Mol. Phyl. Evol. 71, pp. 261–273, 2014 (first description of the genre)
  • George Albert Boulenger: Descriptions of new West-African frogs of the genera Petropedetes and Bulua. Annals and Magazine of Natural History, Series 7, 15, pp. 281–283, 1905 (first description of the species)

Web links

Commons : Odontobatrachus  - collection of images, videos and audio files