Rhacophoridae

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Rhacophoridae
Rhacophoridae diversity
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Amphibia
Order: Anura
Clade: Ranoidea
Family: Rhacophoridae
Hoffman, 1932 (1858)
Subfamilies

Buergeriinae
Rhacophorinae

The Rhacophoridae are a

Greater Sundas, and Sulawesi. They are commonly known as shrub frogs, or more ambiguously as "moss frogs" or "bush frogs". Some Rhacophoridae are called "tree frogs". Among the most spectacular members of this family are numerous "flying frogs
".

Although a few groups are primarily

arboreal treefrogs. Mating frogs, while in amplexus, hold on to a branch, and beat their legs to form a foam. The eggs are laid in the foam and covered with seminal fluid before the foam hardens into a protective casing. In some species, this is done in a large group. The foam is laid above a water source so the tadpoles fall into the water once they hatch.[1]

The species within this family vary in size from 1.5 to 12 cm (0.59 to 4.72 in).

Rhacophorus nigropalmatus). These frogs have extensive webbing between their fore and hind limbs, allowing them to glide through the air.[2]

Taxonomy

Evolution

The Rhacophoridae are the sister group to the Mantellidae, a family of frogs restricted to Madagascar. Both families are thought to have diverged during the Paleocene, although previous studies estimated a Cretaceous divergence. Two different hypotheses for this divergence have been proposed: one that the Mantellidae and Rhacophoridae diverged when Insular India broke from Madagascar, with the Rhacophoridae colonizing the rest of Asia following the collision of India with Asia, and the other proposing that the common ancestors of both families inhabited Asia, with the ancestral Mantellidae colonizing Madagascar from India via long-distance dispersal, using India as a stepping stone.[3][4]

Amboli bush frog (Pseudophilautus amboli), a member of the Rhacophoridae, with enlarged vocal sac for mating calls

Genera

Phylogeny

This phylogeny of the Rhacophoridae is from Yu et al. (2008):[6]

Rhacophoridae 

Parasites

As many frogs, rhacophorids harbour

urinary bladders. The parasite species specialized to this family of frogs belong to the genus Indopolystoma, described in 2019.[7]

References

  1. ^
    ISBN 0-12-178560-2
    .
  2. ^ Sunny Shah & Rachna Tiwari (2001-11-29). "Rhacophorus nigropalmatus, Wallace's Flying Frog". AmphibiaWeb. Retrieved 2007-06-22. Edited by Tate Tunstall (2003-04-12)
  3. PMID 23401521
    .
  4. PMID 28673970
    .
  5. PMID 26000411
    .
  6. ^ Yu Guohua, Rao Dingqi, Zhang Mingwang, Yang Junxing. Re-examination of the phylogeny of Rhacophoridae (Anura) based on mitochondrial and nuclear DNA. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 50 (2009) 571–579. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2008.11.023
  7. PMID 31746733. Open access icon

External links
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