''Dryophytes'' is a genus of Ameroasian tree frogs in the family

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 ...

. They are found mostly in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

, but the genus also includes three species found in eastern

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

Description

''Dryophytes'' consists of small tree-dwelling

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 ...

s, usually green or gray in color. They have digits ending with expanded discs to help them sick to surfaces like trees.

Habitat

These

tree frog A tree frog (or treefrog) is any species of frog that spends a major portion of its lifespan in trees, known as an arboreal state. Several lineages of frogs among the Neobatrachia suborder have given rise to treefrogs, although they are not clos ...

s are found in

wetland A wetland is a distinct semi-aquatic ecosystem whose groundcovers are flooded or saturated in water, either permanently, for years or decades, or only seasonally. Flooding results in oxygen-poor ( anoxic) processes taking place, especially ...

s throughout their range, as well as in

temperate forest A temperate forest is a forest found between the tropical and boreal regions, located in the temperate zone. It is the second largest terrestrial biome, covering 25% of the world's forest area, only behind the boreal forest, which covers about 3 ...

s both on the ground and in trees.

Taxonomy

The genus was first described by Fitzinger in 1843. Later it was placed into the genus ''

Hyla ''Hyla'' is a genus of frogs in the tree frog family Hylidae. As traditionally defined, it was a wastebasket genus with more than 300 species found in Europe, Asia, Africa, and across the Americas. After a major revision of the family, most of t ...

'', the true tree frogs, by Boulenger in 1882. Fouquette and Dubois 2014, treated ''Dryophytes'' as a subgenus of ''Hyla''. ''Dryophytes'' was finally resurrected as an independent genus by Duellman et al. in 2016. Only geographical, rather than morphological, differences separates ''Dryophytes'' from the genus ''Hyla''. ''Hyla'' is found only in the

Old World The "Old World" () is a term for Afro-Eurasia coined by Europeans after 1493, when they became aware of the existence of the Americas. It is used to contrast the continents of Africa, Europe, and Asia in the Eastern Hemisphere, previously ...

, whereas ''Dryophytes'' is distributed in the

New World The term "New World" is used to describe the majority of lands of Earth's Western Hemisphere, particularly the Americas, and sometimes Oceania."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: ...

. Most members occur in North America, but four species are found in eastern temperate Asia; ''D. immaculatus'', ''D. japonica'', ''D. flaviventris'' and ''D. suweonensis''.

Species

The genus ''Dryophytes'' contains 20 species.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q28041740 Amphibian genera Amphibians of Asia Amphibians of Central America Amphibians of North America Taxa named by Leopold Fitzinger