Hyla elegans Wied, 1824

Vanzolini, Paulo E. & Myers, Charles W., 2015, The Herpetological Collection Of Maximilian, Prince Of Wied (1782 - 1867), With Special Reference To Brazilian Materials, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2015 (395), pp. 1-155 : 72-73

Hyla elegans Wied, 1824

Plate 51 and figure 28 (holotype)

1824 Isis : 671 (diagnosis).

1824 Abbildungen: Lief. 7 ( fig. 1 of composite pl.). 1825 Beitra¨ge: 529.

PRESENT STATUS: Hyla elegans Wied, 1824 .

REMARKS: This elegant little frog was diagnosed in the Isis of 1824 and illustrated in the Abbildungen, before being described in the Beitra¨ge. Wied saw this frog, sticking to leaves, at only one place. The type locality, given in the Abbildungen and Beitra¨ge, is Ponte do Gentio, Rio Alcobac¸a at 17 ° 309S, 39 ° 259W ( Vanzolini, 1992: 133).

The holotype, AMNH A-784 ( fig. 28 ), is in poor condition, having lost a large patch of dorsal skin and with limbs falling off ; it is a female with a large decomposed and solidified egg mass. A measurement in 2003 gave 30 mm SVL, essentially the same as Wied’s converted 29.3 mm.

As can be seen from figure 28 , the color pattern is virtually extinct. Duellman (1974: 18) probably inferred the existence of an ‘‘hourglass-shaped dark brown dorsal mark on a creamy tan ground color’’ more from the Abbildungen plate than from this very faded specimen. If the specimen is kept in alcohol and examined under a dissecting scope, with proper light adjustment, vestiges of several markings paler than adjacent skin can be discerned, as follow: (1) a pale triangular area atop the snout in front of eyes; (2) a broad pale dorsolateral stripe extends from the eye posteriad at least past midbody; (3) hint of a pale line atop tibia. These several pale areas are obviously remnants of the color pattern shown in plate 51. Ventrally, the skin at least of the belly is strongly granular, as indicated in the plate. The coloration of the preserved frog in the Abbildungen plate may have come from Wied’s field sketch of another specimen (thought by him to be a male) that he painted in life, perched on a leaf (colored inset in Bosch, 1991: 232).

This is species no. 298 in Wied’s 1860 manuscript catalog, where it is listed in one place (p. 50) as ‘‘ H. elegans Wied (? leucophyllata D.B.)’’ and in another place (p. 79) as ‘‘ Hyla elegans W ( H. leucophyllata Holbr. ?).’’ The species was synonymized with Hyla leucophyllata (Beireis) by Gu¨ nther (1858: 112), where it remained for a long time. Bertha Lutz (1973: 103) had examined the holotype at AMNH and, although she did not disturb the synonymy, she directly associated the name elegans with the ‘‘southern form’’ of leucophyllata , which she described in useful detail. 39 Caramaschi and Jim (1982) mentioned distinguishing characters and resurrected Wied’s Hyla elegans after more than 150 years of synonymy.

Figures

Fig. 28. Holotype of Hyla elegans Wied, 1824 (AMNH A-784).

Fig. 1. Paulo E. Vanzolini. On Serra Tapeque´m (a tepui remnant), Roraima, NE Brazil (July 14,