Agalychnis merge

[ViperJr]

Hello fellow frog forumeers!
Flybyferns recently showed this interesting article about hybridization between A. moreletii and A. annae. It's overall a nice read and I suggest anyone interesting in more than just keeping the frogs to give it a go. However, I stumbled upon something I was totally unaware of, and that I would like to get some clarification on. As far as I knew, the Agalychnis genus currently contained 6 species:
A. salator A. spurelli A. litodryas A. annae A. moreletii A. agalychnis
However, this is from the beginning of the article (which was published on the 11th of February 2011):

There are currently 14 recognized species of Leaf frogs belonging to the genus Agalychnis: Agalychnis annae (Duellman, 1963); Agalychnis aspera (Peters, 1873); Agalychnis buckleyi (Boulenger, 1882); Agalychnis callidryas (Cope, 1862); Agalychnis dacnicolor (Cope, 1864); Agalychnis danieli (Ruíz-Carranza, Hernandez-Camacho and Rueda-Almonacid, 1988); Agalychnis granulosa (Cruz, 1989); Agalychnis hulli (Duellman and Mendleson, 1995); Agalychnis lemur (Boulenger, 1882); Agalychnis medinae (Funkhouser, 1962); Agalychnis moreletti (Dumeril, 1853); Agalychnis psilopygion (Cannatella, 1980); Agalychnis saltator (Taylor, 1955); Agalychnis spurrelli (Boulenger, 1913).

And so the confusion begins. That is 14 species, and it's missing A. litodryas. Moreover, I see some species that confuses me greatly, for example A. lemur. I know there's a species called Hylomantis lemur, but not Aagalychnis lemur. So I turned to good ol' Wikipedia, which states the following:

There used to be 8 species within the Agalychnis genus but a recent major revision of the Hylidae family moved two species to the newly created genus Cruziohyla leaving 6 species in this genus:

Blue-Sided Leaf Frog, Agalychnis annae (Duellman, 1963)
Red-eyed Tree Frog, Agalychnis callidryas (Cope, 1862)
Pink-sided Leaf Frog, Agalychnis litodryas (Duellman and Trueb, 1967)
Morelet's Treefrog, Agalychnis moreletii (Duméril, 1853)
Misfit Leaf Frog, Agalychnis saltator (Taylor, 1955)
Gliding Leaf Frog, Agalychnis spurrelli (Boulenger, 1913)

Lets face it, Wikipedia is not wrong that often, but it seems to be something wrong here, since Wiki shares my view of the Agalychnis genus.
While continuing the confusion, and tried finding something about the Hylomantis lemur, so I Wiki:ed that as well, which gives this, clearly stating that it's a frog within Hylomantis. A searched for Agalychnis lemur gives nothing. I also searched for Hylomantis and now it gets even more interesting. All the species listed within the Hylomantis article, can all be found listen as Agalychnis in the article about hybridization. After some more reading in the article, I found this:

Recent revision has led to the inclusion of the Genus Pachymedusa, and also Hylomantis, now being considered paraphyletic and the synonymy of Agalychnis (Faivovich, et al., 2010).Agalychnis litodryas, which was originally described from one specimen, is now been considered a synonym of Agalychnis spurrelii (Ortega-Andrade, 2008; Faivovich, et al., 2010).

According to this, there's no longer a Hylomantis nor a Pachymedusa genus within the world of frogs, since they all were added to Agalychnis. Since Wikipeda seems to be clueless about this, I tried to find something else to back it up with. I then found the amazing "subwiki" Wikispecies. When reading the article about Agalychnis, it looks exactly like the one in the hybrid article. In addition to this, Hylomantis and Pachymedusa both redirects you to the Agalychnis article. While at Wikispecies, I decided to look up A. litodryas as well, but it redirects to A. spurreli (where Wikipedia have two different articles, claiming they are two different species with different attributes and that they look different from each other).


So, where am I going with this? Well, I just want some confirmation from someone that knows what's up, and that can back it up with some sources, articles, research etc. I would love to know why and when this happened, and how it's possible to merge two species into one, when they look so different from each other. Where there just two different morphs, or how is the logic behind it?
I'm thankful for any answers I get regarding either the species-merge or the genus-merge. I just want to educate myself in a field that I'm very interesting in, and I want to be up to date with the research. Feels bad that I've been walking around thinking I know at least a decent amount about the Agalychnis genus, when I clearly don't!
Lastly, thanks for reading!

[Sissy Anne]

I have absolutely nothing of value to add to the above, I just wanted to thank you for compiling the information (confusing as it is) because I'm also VERY interested in accumulating a "reference collection" of Agalychnis species and variants.

[flybyferns]

Hello fellow frog forumeers!
Flybyferns recently showed this interesting article about hybridization between A. moreletii and A. annae. It's overall a nice read and I suggest anyone interesting in more than just keeping the frogs to give it a go. However, I stumbled upon something I was totally unaware of, and that I would like to get some clarification on. As far as I knew, the Agalychnis genus currently contained 6 species:
A. salator A. spurelli A. litodryas A. annae A. moreletii A. agalychnis
However, this is from the beginning of the article (which was published on the 11th of February 2011):

And so the confusion begins. That is 14 species, and it's missing A. litodryas. Moreover, I see some species that confuses me greatly, for example A. lemur. I know there's a species called Hylomantis lemur, but not Aagalychnis lemur. So I turned to good ol' Wikipedia, which states the following:

Lets face it, Wikipedia is not wrong that often, but it seems to be something wrong here, since Wiki shares my view of the Agalychnis genus.
While continuing the confusion, and tried finding something about the Hylomantis lemur, so I Wiki:ed that as well, which gives this, clearly stating that it's a frog within Hylomantis. A searched for Agalychnis lemur gives nothing. I also searched for Hylomantis and now it gets even more interesting. All the species listed within the Hylomantis article, can all be found listen as Agalychnis in the article about hybridization. After some more reading in the article, I found this:

According to this, there's no longer a Hylomantis nor a Pachymedusa genus within the world of frogs, since they all were added to Agalychnis. Since Wikipeda seems to be clueless about this, I tried to find something else to back it up with. I then found the amazing "subwiki" Wikispecies. When reading the article about Agalychnis, it looks exactly like the one in the hybrid article. In addition to this, Hylomantis and Pachymedusa both redirects you to the Agalychnis article. While at Wikispecies, I decided to look up A. litodryas as well, but it redirects to A. spurreli (where Wikipedia have two different articles, claiming they are two different species with different attributes and that they look different from each other).


So, where am I going with this? Well, I just want some confirmation from someone that knows what's up, and that can back it up with some sources, articles, research etc. I would love to know why and when this happened, and how it's possible to merge two species into one, when they look so different from each other. Where there just two different morphs, or how is the logic behind it?
I'm thankful for any answers I get regarding either the species-merge or the genus-merge. I just want to educate myself in a field that I'm very interesting in, and I want to be up to date with the research. Feels bad that I've been walking around thinking I know at least a decent amount about the Agalychnis genus, when I clearly don't!
Lastly, thanks for reading!

Hi Martin,
It is a great article. I have an idea, but too tired at the moment to explain it.
Great research ! I started heading down this same path. I never got this far digging in. Plus, my mission at he time was obtaining a clear answer to my long ,clearly ,still unanswered question regrading having to separate the a. moreletii from the a. Callidryas . After reading most of this this, it all make me wonder if there is truly anyone who is expert enough on this topic that could explain the confusion.
Lynn

[butcher]

I have read in previous posts from John that the experts in the field continue to change names of species. I don't know for what reason but they do. Is something worth intrest of looking into though.

[flybyferns]

Good Morning Martin,

Sorry I could not do this last night as I was just too tired.
Unfortunately, my job is a bit stressful to say the least!

My first thought is to check to see if there have been any changes on Amphibian Web:
AmphibiaWeb - Agalychnis callidryas
The best way to tackle this is to look-up each--- all 14 separately. I’m sure you know it will have ,what might be, the latest taxonomy information and much more. This project in-itself will take you in a billion different directions.

Secondly, I would seriously consider emailing Karen Warkentin who is the Principal Investigator- here:
Warkentin Lab Home

I have personally emailed researchers (actually, one at Yale University about my little predicament). These people are very busy but generally quite passionate about a “lay” person asking for information about a species they have dedicated their lives to researching. And YES, I did get an answer.

Thirdly, the Costa Rican Amphibian Research Center website may lead you to either individual or additional information:

Costa Rican Amphibians

And lastly, I thought I would throw this into the Agalychnis ‘stew’ . I had set this aside a few weeks ago but have not had the time to really sift through it in detail. I don't think you saw this. A bit dated (2003), but excellent.

http://www.biolog-e.leeds.ac.uk/Biol...riskerfoot.pdf

Lynn

[ViperJr]

I checked Amphibiaweb, and it too seems to be not thoroughly updated and does not add any more information, I'm afraid. According to Amphibiaweb, Hylomantis lemur is now Agalychnis lemur. When looking at the Agalychnis article, it only contains 6 species including Agalychnis lemur, but not the other Pachymedusa or Hylomantis species. The Agalychnis litodryas is however removed.
When looking at Hylomantis article, it lists all the species that is/was in the genus, and I can't find anything about it being merged with Agalychnis.

I might email the people suggested, if no-one can explain how it really is.

[ViperJr]

Hello fellow frog forumeers!
Flybyferns recently showed this interesting article about hybridization between A. moreletii and A. annae. It's overall a nice read and I suggest anyone interesting in more than just keeping the frogs to give it a go. However, I stumbled upon something I was totally unaware of, and that I would like to get some clarification on. As far as I knew, the Agalychnis genus currently contained 6 species:
A. salator A. spurelli A. litodryas A. annae A. moreletii A. agalychnis

I just want to correct myself (since I can't edit the original post now). The A. agalychnis is supposed to be A. callidryas. That's what you get when typing a long topic at 3 AM...

[flybyferns]

Hi Martin,

<I just want to correct myself (since I can't edit the original post now). The A. agalychnis is supposed to be A. callidryas. That's what you get when typing a long topic at 3 AM...<

lol

I personally knew what you meant!
Don't you sleep ???

What caught my interest in the original article were the similarities ( enough to interbreed) between the A. moreletii and A. annae.
AND??? the possibility of other , likely unknown, similarities between the others of which we thought to be 6 and now 14 in the Agalychnis species. Imagine that !

Lynn

[flybyferns]

Hi Martin,
I am very interested in the “tadpole tea” ( see below )
For reading in our spare time
Way more interesting than my, redundant, boards material I have to cover !

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute-Agalychnis lemur Boulenger 1882

Search Results

15 species ?
also check out the “tadpole tea” – wow- red lettering !! – scroll ½ way down
-in link below

Agalychnis and Cruziohyla species @ Agalychnis.de

http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1102/1102.4039.pdf

Names matching the pattern 'Agalychnis' | Amphibian Species of the World

possible contact for above:
>Copyright © 1998-2011, Darrel Frost and The American Museum of Natural History. All Rights Reserved.
Send inquiries to Darrel Frost <frost at amnh org>.<

BioLib - Agalychnis - Species

BioLib - Agalychnis

see links to literature

BioLib - Agalychnis - Links and literature

Lynn

[wesleybrouwer]

It's correct what Andrew stated.
Since the last revision done by Faivovich et al. in 2009/2010 there has been some changes in the Phyllomedusinae.
I won't go to deep into detail, since it's rather difficult material, especially to discuss in a foreign language

The genus Agalychnis so far consists of 14 species (according to Faivovich et al.) , namely:

Agalychnis annae (Duellman, 1963)
Agalychnis aspera (Peters, 1873)
Agalychnis buckleyi (Boulenger, 1882)
Agalychnis callidryas (Cope, 1862)
Agalychnis dacnicolor (Cope, 1864)
Agalychnis danieli (Ruiz-Carranza, Hernández-Camacho, and Rueda-Almonacid, 1988)
Agalychnis granulosa (Cruz, 1989)
Agalychnis hulli (Duellman and Mendelson, 1995)
Agalychnis lemur (Boulenger, 1882)
Agalychnis medinae (Funkhouser, 1962)
Agalychnis moreletii (Duméril, 1853)
Agalychnis psilopygion (Cannatella, 1980)
Agalychnis saltator Taylor, 1955
Agalychnis spurrelli Boulenger, 1913

The Agalychnis litodryas is found to be synonym to spurelli based upon DNA research.

Main reason for new revision is that the recently surrected Hylomantis proven to be paraphylic with members being synonym for Agalychnis,
by revising these species we get a better evolutionary taxonomy, called cladistics.

Here some info on what this means, why explain if it's already done better then i can do it
Cladistics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Paraphyly - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Monophyly - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


It's true that some things may get difficult by all the revisions.
For example the lemur has switched between originally belonging to Agalychnis and Phyllomedusa quit some times,
in 2005 they were placed in the newly surrected genus of Hylomantis.
Now after new research there is descided to place them back in the genus of Agalychnis.

Most likely in the near future some more changes will follow, since they didn't have access to DNA of all members from the subfamily of Phyllomedusinae.
They only had access to 45 of the 60 species of phyllomedusines.

I must have the papers around here somewhere.
Not sure if i may just upload it, but i might mail it to you so you can read the complete supportive papers going with this hypothesis.
Strange but true, the name changes are only vallid as other researchers and such are convinced by the validity of the research findings and take on the revision or cite in their own publications.

[wesleybrouwer]

This is the right taxonomy used since the revision, not yet completely supported so it seems tho

Names matching the pattern 'Agalychnis' | Amphibian Species of the World

Not sure if allowed, but here is the scientific paper worth a read trough,
if not allowed....sorry in advance.

[ViperJr]

Wesleybrouwer to the rescue once again! Thanks a lot for the answers. So, basically it's just that Wikipedia/Wikispecies/Amphibanweb are all unupdated (which I've figured out already), and on top of that, the research is not yet completely supported. But right now it's most accurate to consider Agalychnis a genus of 14 species.

Thanks for the paper about it, I'm going to read it. Also, someone with a lot better English (and general understanding of the subject) than me should update Wikipedia... Hint hint, Wesleybrouwer

[flybyferns]

Hi Wesley,
Thanks,
I bet Martin will enjoy this.
I had seen your first link in your reply.
Page 259 of the scientific paper is quite helpful!
Lynn

[flybyferns]

It's correct what Andrew stated.
Since the last revision done by Faivovich et al. in 2009/2010 there has been some changes in the Phyllomedusinae.
I won't go to deep into detail, since it's rather difficult material, especially to discuss in a foreign language

The genus Agalychnis so far consists of 14 species (according to Faivovich et al.) , namely:

Agalychnis annae (Duellman, 1963)
Agalychnis aspera (Peters, 1873)
Agalychnis buckleyi (Boulenger, 1882)
Agalychnis callidryas (Cope, 1862)
Agalychnis dacnicolor (Cope, 1864)
Agalychnis danieli (Ruiz-Carranza, Hernández-Camacho, and Rueda-Almonacid, 1988)
Agalychnis granulosa (Cruz, 1989)
Agalychnis hulli (Duellman and Mendelson, 1995)
Agalychnis lemur (Boulenger, 1882)
Agalychnis medinae (Funkhouser, 1962)
Agalychnis moreletii (Duméril, 1853)
Agalychnis psilopygion (Cannatella, 1980)
Agalychnis saltator Taylor, 1955
Agalychnis spurrelli Boulenger, 1913

The Agalychnis litodryas is found to be synonym to spurelli based upon DNA research.

Main reason for new revision is that the recently surrected Hylomantis proven to be paraphylic with members being synonym for Agalychnis,
by revising these species we get a better evolutionary taxonomy, called cladistics.

Here some info on what this means, why explain if it's already done better then i can do it
Cladistics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Paraphyly - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Monophyly - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


It's true that some things may get difficult by all the revisions.
For example the lemur has switched between originally belonging to Agalychnis and Phyllomedusa quit some times,
in 2005 they were placed in the newly surrected genus of Hylomantis.
Now after new research there is descided to place them back in the genus of Agalychnis.

Most likely in the near future some more changes will follow, since they didn't have access to DNA of all members from the subfamily of Phyllomedusinae.
They only had access to 45 of the 60 species of phyllomedusines.

I must have the papers around here somewhere.
Not sure if i may just upload it, but i might mail it to you so you can read the complete supportive papers going with this hypothesis.
Strange but true, the name changes are only vallid as other researchers and such are convinced by the validity of the research findings and take on the revision or cite in their own publications.

Wesley,
>The Agalychnis litodryas is found to be synonym to spurelli based upon DNA research.<

This would explain why in one paper I read, I counted 15 species. It neglected to differentiate this.
Lynn

[wesleybrouwer]

Wesleybrouwer to the rescue once again! Thanks a lot for the answers. So, basically it's just that Wikipedia/Wikispecies/Amphibanweb are all unupdated (which I've figured out already), and on top of that, the research is not yet completely supported. But right now it's most accurate to consider Agalychnis a genus of 14 species.

Thanks for the paper about it, I'm going to read it. Also, someone with a lot better English (and general understanding of the subject) than me should update Wikipedia... Hint hint, Wesleybrouwer

That's to much honor
I am still improving my English.
Because of the English magazine i got the chance of improving my English some more over the past couple of years,
the more you read and use it, the better it gets.
But i guess i'm still far off the quality of native speakers.

It's true that some prominent reference sites aren't keeping up with the latest nomenclature.
Most of the times i bring it to their attention, but still they don't always fix the errors, not sure why.
Still got a hard time with the faulty use of M.stelzneri for klappenbachi over seas as well,
around here i gladly see most changed the name, perhaps my English isn't good enough to explain the more difficult subjects
For some species the nomenclature even depends on the author, especially in Bufonids there is a lot of confusion.

Perhaps a native speaker will be able to read and understand the publication and adjust the wikipedia according to this
Amphibiaweb for some reason isn't to quick changing names.
Mailed them a while ago about the klappenbachi as well.
But so you see, never trust internet resources blind
American Museum of Natural History
Amphibian Species of the World however is mostly quit accurate on the names.

[ZdeJonge]

Thank you, interesting information.
Going to read that paper :-)