''Anodonthyla'' is a genus of
microhylid
The Microhylidae, commonly known as narrow-mouthed frogs, are a geographically widespread family of frogs. The 683 species are in 63 genera and 11 subfamilies, which is the largest number of genera of any frog family.
Evolution
A molecular phylo ...
frog
A frog is any member of a diverse and largely carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order Anura (ανοὐρά, literally ''without tail'' in Ancient Greek). The oldest fossil "proto-frog" '' Triadobatrachus'' is ...
s
endemic
Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found els ...
to
Madagascar
Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...
.
[ Molecular data suggest that it is the ]sister taxon
In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree.
Definition
The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram:
Taxon A and ...
to all other species in the subfamily Cophylinae
Cophylinae is a subfamily of microhylid frogs endemic to Madagascar. It has over 100 species in eight genera. Members of this subfamily range from minute ( 100 mm adult body size), and they are highly ecologically diverse. DNA barcode rese ...
.[
]
Species
The genus contains twelve recognized species:[
]
Description
One of the most obvious morphological synapomorphies
In phylogenetics, an apomorphy (or derived trait) is a novel character or character state that has evolved from its ancestral form (or plesiomorphy). A synapomorphy is an apomorphy shared by two or more taxa and is therefore hypothesized to hav ...
of the genus is the presence, in males only, of a large prepollex that runs along the first finger and generally is closely connected to the first finger over most of its length. Correlated to this character, in males and females, the first finger is very short compared to other cophylines. This is true even of the extremely miniaturised species '' Anodonthyla eximia'' described in 2019.
Related pages
*Amphibians of Madagascar
The population of amphibians of Madagascar is made up exclusively of frogs.
There are 311 named species of frogs on Madagascar, but several hundred have been identified using DNA barcoding and remain to be formally described.
Native described spec ...
References
External links
*
{{Taxonbar, from=Q1861556
Cophylinae
Amphibian genera
Endemic frogs of Madagascar
Taxa named by Fritz Müller (doctor)