''Copiula'' 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 57 genera and 11 subfamilies. Evolution A molecular phylogenetic study by van der Meijden, et al. (2007) has estima ...

frog A frog is any member of a diverse and largely semiaquatic group of short-bodied, tailless amphibian vertebrates composing the order (biology), order Anura (coming from the Ancient Greek , literally 'without tail'). Frog species with rough ski ...

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only 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 foun ...

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; , fossilized , also known as Papua or historically ) is the List of islands by area, world's second-largest island, with an area of . Located in Melanesia in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is ...

. The common name Mehely frogs has been coined for them. They are leaf-litter inhabitants.

Taxonomy

''Copiula'' is probably not

monophyletic In biological cladistics for the classification of organisms, monophyly is the condition of a taxonomic grouping being a clade – that is, a grouping of organisms which meets these criteria: # the grouping contains its own most recent co ...

. Some former ''

Austrochaperina ''Austrochaperina'' is a genus of microhylid frogs found on New Guinea, New Britain and Australia. Taxonomy The genus was removed from the synonymy of '' Sphenophryne'' by Richard Zweifel in 2000. However, as currently defined, it might not ...

'' species have already been transferred to this genus, and further ones might follow when more data became available.

Species

There are at present 14 species in this genus: The AmphibiaWeb reports fewer species, with species that Peloso and colleagues moved in 2016 from ''

'' and '' Oxydactyla'' missing.

References

Microhylidae Amphibians of Oceania Amphibians of New Guinea Amphibian genera Taxa named by Lajos Méhelÿ Endemic fauna of New Guinea {{Microhylidae-stub