Edulis?

[Kevin1]

Perhaps a natural inter-grade between the two.

[tgampper]

Perhaps a natural inter-grade between the two.

It would be interesting to know if pyxie hybrids are becoming popular. I know the there are quite a few hybrids among horned frogs. Some pyxies that I seen have traits of both adspersus and edulis.

[John]

Given that Pyxicephalus adspersus and P. edulis lay eggs in markedly different fashions, I think hybridization is at least very difficult, if not impossible.

Terry, please inform my ignorance - the frog on the left of the original comparison picture is P. edulis? Then what is the frog in the photos posted by Jeff?

[Kevin1]

I couldn't help but wonder. The frogs in that video are very odd especially how dark the female is.

That video has had me confused since I first seen it years ago..

If not Obbianus, and hybridization is out of the question..than a new species? Or perhaps an Edulis subspecies?

[willtilian]

i would think a adpersus subspecie due to its size or the bridge between the two species like lucy between humans and apes

[SethD]

Given that Pyxicephalus adspersus and P. edulis lay eggs in markedly different fashions, I think hybridization is at least very difficult, if not impossible.

I wouldn't completely rule it out though, sometimes frogs that that you wouldn't suspect can still successfully hybridize and in some cases those hybrids are even fertile. For example in toads there has been at least one genetically documented case of a wild natural hybrid between a woodhouse toad and a Colorado river toad, and also hybrids between wooodhouse toads and red spotted toads(which have somewhat different egg laying modes since red spotteds lay eggs individually and woodhouse lay in strings). Of course in those cases the occasional hybrids either are not fertile or don't do as well as the parent species or else gene flow would have created a new "species" a long time ago.

It wouldn't shock me though if wild male edulis were able to breed with female adspersus in areas where adspersus was less common some time in the past and created a "species" with some characteristics of both.

[onedge30]

Very interesting, Seth. And in reading a lot of data, it looks like adspersus and edulis have different breeding seasons. So a few hung over from adspersus and got caught by a few eager beavers from edulis.

OK, now here is the big one. If everyone watching this post 'had to' narrow all the photos you have seen of Pyxicephalus, down to 'the' three species, what pictures would you pic? Out of everything you can humanly find.

[Kevin1]

Very interesting, Seth. And in reading a lot of data, it looks like adspersus and edulis have different breeding seasons. So a few hung over from adspersus and got caught by a few eager beavers from edulis.

OK, now here is the big one. If everyone watching this post 'had to' narrow all the photos you have seen of Pyxicephalus, down to 'the' three species, what pictures would you pic? Out of everything you can humanly find.

That sounds like a quite a task. lol

[onedge30]

I know it sound daunting, but that is what we kinda are looking for.

Everything else, would be based off the 3 original species.

[Kevin1]

I wouldn't completely rule it out though, sometimes frogs that that you wouldn't suspect can still successfully hybridize and in some cases those hybrids are even fertile. For example in toads there has been at least one genetically documented case of a wild natural hybrid between a woodhouse toad and a Colorado river toad, and also hybrids between wooodhouse toads and red spotted toads(which have somewhat different egg laying modes since red spotteds lay eggs individually and woodhouse lay in strings). Of course in those cases the occasional hybrids either are not fertile or don't do as well as the parent species or else gene flow would have created a new "species" a long time ago.

It wouldn't shock me though if wild male edulis were able to breed with female adspersus in areas where adspersus was less common some time in the past and created a "species" with some characteristics of both.

Thank you Seth.
I think I'll stick with my first idea of it being some kind of inter-grade.