Hyloidea is a superfamily of frogs.R.Alexander Pyron, John J.Wiens, 2011, ''A large-scale phylogeny of Amphibia including over 2800 species, and a revised classification of extant frogs, salamanders, and caecilians'' Hyloidea accounts for 54% of all living anuran species. The superfamily Hyloidea branched off from its closest relative, the

Australobatrachia Australobatrachia ("southern frogs") is a clade of frogs in the suborder Neobatrachia. It comprises three families of frogs with a Gondwanan distribution, being known from Chile, Australia, and New Guinea. Together, they form the sister group ...

, during the mid-

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of ...

. The fossil evidence found during the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event could not determine the effects upon the frogs, due to the lack of fossils. Increased forestation erupted after this extinction, possibly leading to more arboreal adaptations of these anurans to be best suited for this habitat.

Taxonomy

Hyloidea contains the following subgroups: * Alsodidae - (26 species) * Batrachylidae - (14 species) *

Bufonidae {{Cat main, Toad This category contains both species commonly called toads, and the true toads from the family Bufonidae {{Cat main, Toad This category Category, plural categories, may refer to: Philosophy and general uses *Categorization, cat ...

- true toads (700 species) *Brachycephaloides **

Brachycephalidae The Brachycephalidae () are a family of frogs confined to eastern and southern Brazil and northern Argentina. The family is composed of two externally quite different genera: the tiny, often (but not always) colourful and plump saddleback toads ...

- saddleback toads, flea toads and big-headed frogs (70 species) **

Craugastoridae Craugastoridae, commonly known as fleshbelly frogs, is a family of New World direct-developing frogs. As delineated here, following the Amphibian Species of the World, it contains 129 species. They are found from the southern United States south ...

- fleshbelly frogs (822 species) **

Eleutherodactylidae The Eleutherodactylidae are a family of direct-developing frogs native to northern South America, the Caribbean, and southernmost North America. They are sometimes known under the common name rain frogs. Formerly the subfamily Eleutherodactylina ...

- robber frogs (223 species) *Centrolenids ** Allophrynidae - Tukeit Hill frogs (3 species) ** Centrolenidae - glass frogs (155 species) *

Ceratophryidae The Ceratophryidae, also known as common horned frogs, are a family of frogs found in South America. It is a relatively small family with three extant genera and 12 species. Despite the common name, not all species in the family have the horn-lik ...

- common horned frogs (12 species) * Cycloramphidae - glass frogs (36 species) * Dendrobatoidea ** Dendrobatidae - poison frogs (194 species) **

Aromobatidae The Aromobatidae are a family of frogs native to Central and South America. They are sometimes referred to as cryptic forest frogs or cryptic poison frogs. They are the sister taxon of the Dendrobatidae, the poison dart frogs, but are not as to ...

- cryptic forest frogs (121 species) *

Hemiphractidae The Hemiphractidae are a family of frogs from South and Central America. Previously, this group had been classified as a subfamily (Hemiphractinae) under family Hylidae. More recent research classifies these genera into their own family, or som ...

- (112 species) *

Hylidae Hylidae is a wide-ranging family of frogs commonly referred to as "tree frogs and their allies". However, the hylids include a diversity of frog species, many of which do not live in trees, but are terrestrial or semiaquatic. Taxonomy and ...

- treefrogs (1036 species) * Hylodidae - (47 species) *

Leptodactylidae The southern frogs form the Leptodactylidae, a name that comes from Greek meaning a bird or other animal having slender toes. They are a diverse family of frogs that most likely diverged from other hyloids during the Cretaceous. The family has u ...

- southern frogs (206 species) * Odontophrynidae - (53 species) *

Rhinodermatidae Rhinodermatidae, also known as Darwin's frogs, mouth-breeding frogs or mouth-brooding frogs, is a small family of frogs found in temperate forests of southern Chile and adjacent Argentina. They are a unique and evolutionary significant group of ...

- Darwin's frogs or mouth-brooding frogs (3 species) *

Telmatobiidae ''Telmatobius'' is a genus of frogs native to the Andean highlands in South America, where they are found in Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, northwestern Argentina and northern Chile. It is the only genus in the family Telmatobiidae. Some sources recogni ...

- water frogs (63 species)

Phylogenetic relationships

Anurans all share a number of morphological characteristics, so researchers have had to use DNA testing to understand their relationships. ML and Bayesian analyses using a nuclear marker toolkit have resolved some of the relations of the anurans in Hyloidea. 53 out of the 55 previously established nodes on the phylogenetic tree were supported by this DNA testing. Analysis supports the Hyloidea being the sister group to the

, a clade of frogs containing species in Chile, Australia, and

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torr ...

. The common ancestor of both groups inhabited South America during the Early Cretaceous.

Shared characteristics

Hyloidea is the largest superfamily of anurans due to scientists placing frogs into this family when the relationships to others are unknown. Therefore, Hyloidea has the highest species diversity. Hyloidea are all tailless, have shortened bodies, large mouths and muscular hind legs. Most anurans in the superfamily have a lateral‐bender which is a type of pelvis morphology found in walking, hopping and burrowing frogs. Some species that appear later in the taxon have a sagittal‐hinge pelvis found in aquatic frogs as well as walking, hopping and burrowing frogs and some have a fore–aft slider pelvis found in terrestrial frogs. Hyloidea anurans lack ribs, have complex mouthparts, and their pectoral girdle can be arciferal or firmisternal. They reproduce via axillary amplexus, and their larvae usually have a single spiracle. The average snout-vent length (SVL) of Hyloidea species vary widely, from 10 mm in one species of ''Diasporus'' to 320 mm in female ''Calyptocephalella gayi''.

Distribution

It's believed that Hyloidea first evolved on the Gondwanan supercontinent in what is now southern South America, then spread throughout the world. Today, they can be found in every continent except Antarctica, although in 2020 a roughly 40 million year old fossil from the hyloid family Calyptocephalellidae was discovered on Seymour Island in the Antarctic Peninsula. The distribution of Hyloidea species is highly correlated with climate, with most species found in areas with higher annual mean temperatures.

Conservation

As of February 2021, out of the 3161 species of Hyloidea represented on the IUCN Red List, 361 were listed as critically endangered (11.4%), 475 as endangered (15%), and 310 as vulnerable (9.8%). Overall, one of the greatest threats to Hyloidea species is habitat loss due to agriculture.

References

{{Anura Neobatrachia Vertebrate superfamilies