Ceratobatrachidae Explained

The Ceratobatrachidae are a family of frogs^[1] found in the Malay Peninsula, Borneo, the Philippines, Palau, Fiji, New Guinea, and the Admiralty, Bismarck, and Solomon Islands.^[1]

Taxonomy

Ceratobatrachidae was formerly treated as a subfamily (i.e., Ceratobatrachinae) in the family Ranidae (true frogs), but have now been re-classified as a separate family. The following genera are recognised:^[1]

• Subfamily Alcalinae Brown, Siler, Richards, Diesmos, and Cannatella, 2015
  • Alcalus (5 species)
• Subfamily Ceratobatrachinae Boulenger, 1884
  • Cornufer Tschudi, 1838 (> 50 species)
  • Platymantis Günther, 1858 (> 30 species)
• Subfamily Liuraninae Fei, Ye, and Jiang, 2010
  • Liurana Dubois, 1987 (4 species)

Formerly, the following genera were also recognized in the family Ceratobatrachidae, but have now been merged into the genera above.

• Batrachylodes Boulenger, 1887 (8 species)
• Palmatorappia Ahl, 1927 (1 species)
• Ceratobatrachus Boulenger, 1884 (1 species)
• Discodeles Boulenger, 1918 (5 species)

Distribution

Ceratobatrachidae is distributed across Island Southeast Asia,^[2] as well as in the Eastern Himalayas.

Genus Liurana

• Eastern Himalayas

4 species

Genus Alcalus

• Borneo

2 species (Alcalus baluensis and Alcalus rajae)

• Palawan

1 species (Alcalus mariae)

Genus Platymantis

• Philippines:

Genus Cornufer

• Palau

1 species

• Maluku

3-4 species

• New Guinea

6-8 species

• Bismarck Archipelago

18-22 species

• Solomon Islands

20-25 species

• Fiji

2 species

Life history

All Ceratobatrachidae lay eggs outside of water and undergo direct development where eggs hatch directly into froglets, without free-living tadpole stages.^[3]

Notes and References

1. Web site: Ceratobatrachidae Boulenger, 1884 . Frost, Darrel R. . 2014 . Amphibian Species of the World: an Online Reference. Version 6.0 . American Museum of Natural History . 22 February 2014.
2. Brown . Rafe M. . Siler . Cameron D. . Richards . Stephen J. . Diesmos . Arvin C. . Cannatella . David C. . Multilocus phylogeny and a new classification for Southeast Asian and Melanesian forest frogs (family Ceratobatrachidae) . Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society . 174 . 1 . 2015 . 130–168 . 10.1111/zoj.12232. free .
3. Book: Fuiten, Allison Marie . Skeletal Variation in Melanesian Forest Frogs (Anura: Ceratobatrachidae) . 2012 . M.A. thesis, University of Kansas . 69 . 22 February 2014.