Phyllomedusinae

Phyllomedusinae
Burmeister's leaf frog
(Phyllomedusa burmeisteri)
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Amphibia
Order: Anura
Family: Hylidae
Subfamily: Phyllomedusinae
Gunther, 1858
Diversity
8 genera, 66 species

Phyllomedusinae is a subfamily of hylid tree frogs found in the Neotropics commonly called leaf frogs. Formerly, they were often considered as their own family, Phyllomedusidae.

The subfamily is considered to be the sister group to the Australian treefrogs (Pelodryadinae), a subfamily of frogs known from Australia and New Guinea, despite being very geographically separated from them. The common ancestor of both subfamilies is thought to have lived in early Cenozoic South America, where the Phyllomedusinae still live, with the two families diverging from one another during the Eocene. The ancestors of Pelodryadinae likely colonized Australasia from South America via Antarctica, which at the time was not yet frozen over.[1] The clade comprising both subfamilies is sister to the Hylinae, from which they diverged in the early Paleogene.[2]

  1. ^ Duellman, William E.; Marion, Angela B.; Hedges, S. Blair (2016-04-19). "Phylogenetics, classification, and biogeography of the treefrogs (Amphibia: Anura: Arboranae)". Zootaxa. 4104 (1): 1–109. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.4104.1.1. ISSN 1175-5334. PMID 27394762.
  2. ^ Feng, Yan-Jie; Blackburn, David C.; Liang, Dan; Hillis, David M.; Wake, David B.; Cannatella, David C.; Zhang, Peng (2017-07-18). "Phylogenomics reveals rapid, simultaneous diversification of three major clades of Gondwanan frogs at the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 114 (29): E5864–E5870. Bibcode:2017PNAS..114E5864F. doi:10.1073/pnas.1704632114. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 5530686. PMID 28673970.