Terrarana

Terrarana
Noblella pygmaea
Systematics
Superclass : Jaw mouths (Gnathostomata) Row : Land vertebrates (Tetrapoda) without rank: Amphibians (Lissamphibia) Order : Frog (anura) Subordination : Neobatrachia without rank: Terrarana
Scientific name
Terrarana
Hedges , Duellman & Heinicke , 2008

Terrarana , also called Brachycephaloidea, is the name of a species-rich group of frogs (Anura), in which the eggs are laid on land. Finished young frogs hatch from these without going through a larval stage in the water. The almost 900 species that belong to the group - 33 percent of all New World frogs and 16 percent of the world's known frog species - live exclusively in subtropical and tropical North, Central and South America, often far from water on treetops or at higher altitudes . In the West Indies they even make up 84 percent of the total amphibious diversity. The distribution area extends from the southern USA to northern Argentina, the biotopes inhabited by them from Caribbean coastal forests to the Páramos in the Andes at altitudes of up to 4500 m.

features

A characteristic feature of the group is their direct development, i.e. the absence of the aquatic tadpole stage . Instead, larval development takes place within the eggs laid in damp places on land and ready-made young frogs hatch. Thus it is possible for them to colonize even moist habitats without open water. Your skin is more supplied with blood on the belly than other frogs.

relationship

The Terrarana include nearly 900 species of frogs from different families and subfamilies. About 25 genera and numerous species groups can be assigned to them. The family Hemiphractidae , which was formerly assigned to the tree frogs (Hylidae) as a subfamily , is placed in the vicinity of this group.

The relationships between the various families and groups of species have not, however, been finally clarified. Molecular genetic methods can only contribute to the elucidation of the tribal history of these frogs to a limited extent. The three families Craugastoridae , Brachycephalidae and Eleutherodactylidae were combined to form the superfamily Brachycephaloidea .

The probable relationships of the three families including the subfamilies of Craugastoridae, in which the development from larva to frog takes place in the egg, is illustrated by the following cladogram :

	Terrarana     Craugastoridae   Craugastorinae      Holoadeninae      Ceuthomantinae      Saddleback toads (Brachycephalidae)      Eleutherodactylidae      Hemiphractidae

literature

• S. Blair Hedges, William E. Duellman, Matthew P. Heinicke: New World direct-developing frogs (Anura: Terrarana): Molecular phylogeny, classification, biogeography, and conservation. In: Zootaxa . Volume 1737, No. 1, 2008, pp. 1-182, DOI: 10.11646 / zootaxa.1737.1.1 ( PDF ).
• A. Gonzalez-Voyer, José M. Padial, Santiago Castroviejo-Fisher , I. de la Riva, C. Vilà: Correlates of species richness in the largest Neotropical amphibian radiation. In: Journal of Evolutionary Biology. Volume 24, No. 5, 2011, pp. 931-942, DOI: 10.1111 / j.1420-9101.2011.02243.x .
• José M. Padial, Taran Grant, Darrel R. Frost: Molecular systematics of terraranas (Anura: Brachycephaloidea) with an assessment of the effects of alignment and optimality criteria. In: Zootaxa. Volume 3825, No. 1, 2014, pp. 1–132, DOI: 10.11646 / zootaxa.3827.4.10 .

Individual evidence

1. Jump up ↑ Matthew P. Heinicke, William E. Duellman, Linda Trueb , D. Bruce Means, Ross D. Macculloch, S. Blair Hedges: A new frog family (Anura: Terrarana) from South America and an expanded direct-developing clade revealed by molecular phylogeny. In: Zootaxa. Volume 2211, No. 1, 2009, pp. 1-35, DOI: 10.5281 / zenodo.189873 ( PDF ).
2. ^ A. Gonzalez-Voyer, José M. Padial, S. Castroviejo-Fisher, I. de la Riva, C. Vilà: Correlates of species richness in the largest Neotropical amphibian radiation. In: Journal of Evolutionary Biology. Volume 24, No. 5, 2011, pp. 931-942 (p. 933), DOI: 10.1111 / j.1420-9101.2011.02243.x .
3. ↑ José M. Padial, Taran Grant, Darrel R. Frost: Molecular systematics of terraranas (Anura: Brachycephaloidea) with an assessment of the effects of alignment and optimality criteria. In: Zootaxa. Volume 3825, No. 1, 2014, pp. 1–132, DOI: 10.11646 / zootaxa.3827.4.10 .
4. ↑ José M. Padial, Taran Grant, Darrel R. Frost: Corrections to “Padial et al. (2014) Molecular systematics of terraranas (Anura: Brachycephaloidea) with an assessment of the effects of alignment and optimality criteria ”. In: Zootaxa. Volume 3827, No. 4, 2014, pp. 599-600, DOI: 10.11646 / zootaxa.3827.4.10 ( PDF ).