Cophomantinae Hoffmann, 1878

Duellman, William E., Marion, Angela B. & Hedges, Blair, 2016, Phylogenetics, classification, and biogeography of the treefrogs (Amphibia: Anura: Arboranae), Zootaxa 4104 (1), pp. 1-109 : 29-30

Subfamily Cophomantinae Hoffmann, 1878

Cophomantina Hoffmann,1878:614 . Type genus Cophomantis Peters, 1870:650 , junior synonym of Hypsiboas, Wagler, 1830:200 (fide Peters, 1873 “1872”: 772).

Definition. Small to large, mostly arboreal frogs lacking casque heads; many have stream-adapted tadpoles. Chromosome complement 2n = 24, except 2n = 22 in Hypsiboas albopunctatus , and 18, 20, and 22 in some species of Aplastodiscus .

Content. Seven genera 179 species.

Distribution. Tropical and subtropical South America northward from Bolivia, Uruguay and northern Argentina to Nicaragua, and the Islands of Tobago and Trinidad.

Etymology. The familial name is derived from the Greek kophos meaning dull and the Greek mantis meaning prophet. Hoffmann’s (1878) intention for the meaning of the familial name is unknown. The gender is masculine.

Remarks. Our molecular data coupled with morphological data necessitate the recognition of one new genus within Hyloscirtus . Enlarged oral discs completely bordered by papillae and bearing large numbers of tooth rows are characteristic of four stream-breeding genera. Two of these genera ( Colomascirtus and Hyloscirtus ) are sister taxa in the Andes. The other two genera ( Bokermannohyla in southeastern Brazil and Myersiohyla in the Guiana Highlands) represent independent lineages. The largest known LTRF is 16/ 21 in Myersiohyla neblinaria Faivovich, McDiarmid, and Myers (2013) .

Molecular data are available for only 56 of the 90 recognized species of Hypsiboas (62%). There are some clades that might be recognized as genera, but each is a progressive stepwise arrangement within Hypsiboas . First and foremost among these is the Hypsiboas benitezi Group ( Fig. 11 A), defined by Faivovich et al. (2005). Four of the species in this well-supported (98%) clade ( Fig. 4 ) occur in northeastern South America, whereas two others ( H. nympha Faivovich, Moravec, Cisneros-Heredia and Köhler and H. microderma Pyburn exist in the upper Amazon Basin. The Hypsiboas albopunctatus ( Fig. 11 B) and Hypsiboas pulchellus ( Fig. 11 C) groups also are well supported (99%). Likewise, the Hypsiboas faber Group ( Fig. 11 D) of Faivovich et al. (2005) is well supported (100%) in our tree, which contains, except for H. albomarginatus (Spix) , the gladiator frogs that construct nests, as defined by Kluge (1979), not the misuse of the term by Köhler et al. (2010). However, H. boans (Linnaeus) , a nestbuilding gladiator frog is related to H. semilineatus and H. geographicus in our tree. Such apparent discrepancies indicate that greater taxon sampling and more thorough molecular refinement is essential to construct a realistic phylogeny of this large group of Neotropical treefrogs.

Figures

FIGURE 4. Maximum likelihood phylogeny of arboranan frogs based on DNA sequence data from 19 genes (16,128 aligned sites). The tree is rooted with Ceuthomantis smaragdinus, Dendrobates auratus, Haddadus binotatus, and Rhinoderma darwinii (not shown). Bootstrap support values are indicated at nodes.

FIGURE 11. Representatives of species groups of Hypsiboas defined by Faivovich et al. 2005. A. H. sibleszi (H. benitezi Group), KU 181099, Km 127, El Dorado – Santa Elena de Uairén Road, 1250 m, Bolívar, Venezuela. B. H. lanciformis (H. albopunctatus Group), KU 221881, San Jacinto, 175 m, Loreto, Peru. C. H. riojanus (H. pulchellus Group), KU 160195, 6 km W Betanzas, 3330 m, Potosí, Bolivia. D. H. crepitans (H. faber Group), KU 166781, 16 km northeast Barrancas, 140 m, Bariñas, Venezuela. All by W. E. Duellman.