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Amphibians are four-limbed and ectothermic vertebrates of the class Amphibia. All living amphibians belong to the group Lissamphibia. They inhabit a wide variety of habitats, with most species living within terrestrial, fossorial, arboreal or freshwater aquatic ecosystems. Thus amphibians typically start out as larvae living in water, but some species have developed behavioural adaptations to bypass this.
Salamanders are a group of amphibians typically characterized by their lizard-like appearance, with slender bodies, blunt snouts, short limbs projecting at right angles to the body, and the presence of a tail in both larvae and adults. All ten extant salamander families are grouped together under the order Urodela from the group Caudata. Salamander diversity is highest in eastern North America, especially in the Appalachian Mountains; most species are found in the Holarctic realm, with some species present in the Neotropical realm.
A frog is any member of a diverse and largely carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order Anura. The oldest fossil "proto-frog" Triadobatrachus is known from the Early Triassic of Madagascar, but molecular clock dating suggests their split from other amphibians may extend further back to the Permian, 265 million years ago. Frogs are widely distributed, ranging from the tropics to subarctic regions, but the greatest concentration of species diversity is in tropical rainforest. Frogs account for around 88% of extant amphibian species. They are also one of the five most diverse vertebrate orders. Warty frog species tend to be called toads, but the distinction between frogs and toads is informal, not from taxonomy or evolutionary history.
The Lissamphibia is a group of tetrapods that includes all modern amphibians. Lissamphibians consist of three living groups: the Salientia, the Caudata, and the Gymnophiona. A fourth group, the Allocaudata, was moderately successful, spanning 160 million years from the Middle Jurassic to the Early Pleistocene, but became extinct two million years ago.
The Cryptobranchidae are a family of fully aquatic salamanders commonly known as the giant salamanders. They include the largest living amphibians. The family is native to China, Japan, and the eastern United States. They constitute one of two living families—the other being the Asiatic salamanders belonging to the family Hynobiidae—within the Cryptobranchoidea, one of two main divisions of living salamanders.
Caecilians are a group of limbless, vermiform (worm-shaped) or serpentine (snake-shaped) amphibians. They mostly live hidden in soil or in streambeds, and this cryptic lifestyle renders caecilians among the least familiar amphibians. Modern caecilians live in the tropics of South and Central America, Africa, and southern Asia. Caecilians feed on small subterranean creatures such as earthworms. The body is cylindrical and often darkly coloured, and the skull is bullet-shaped and strongly built. Caecilian heads have several unique adaptations, including fused cranial and jaw bones, a two-part system of jaw muscles, and a chemosensory tentacle in front of the eye. The skin is slimy and bears ringlike markings or grooves, which may contain tiny scales.
The Pipidae are a family of primitive, tongueless frogs. The 41 species in the family Pipidae are found in tropical South America and sub-Saharan Africa.
The Arthroleptidae are a family of frogs found in sub-Saharan Africa. This group includes African treefrogs in the genus Leptopelis along with the terrestrial breeding squeakers Arthroleptis, and several genera restricted to the Guinean forests of central and west Africa, such as the hairy frog (Trichobatrachus).
David Burton Wake was an American herpetologist. He was professor of integrative biology and Director and curator of herpetology of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of California, Berkeley. Wake is known for his work on the biology and evolution of salamanders as well as general issues of vertebrate evolutionary biology. He has served as president of the Society for the Study of Evolution, the American Society of Naturalists, and American Society of Zoologists. He was a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Linnean Society of London, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and in 1998 was elected into the National Academy of Sciences. He was awarded the 2006 Leidy Award from the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia.
The red-bellied newt is a newt that is native to coastal woodlands in northern California and is terrestrial for most of its life.
The Bornean flat-headed frog is a species of frog in the family Bombinatoridae. Although many salamanders are lungless, the Bornean flat-headed frog is the first frog known to have no lungs.
Bolitoglossa is a genus of lungless salamanders, also called mushroom-tongued salamanders, tropical climbing salamanders, or web-footed salamanders, in the family Plethodontidae. Their range is between northern Mexico through Central America to Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, northeastern Brazil, and central Bolivia. Neotropical salamanders of the Bolitoglossa make up the largest genus in the order Caudata, consisting of approximately one-fifth of all known species of salamanders. Adult salamanders range anywhere from 45mm to 200mm in length depending on their specific species. They are notorious for their ability to project their tongue at prey items, as indicated from their name. They are also known for their webbed feet, having significantly more webbing than any other species outside their genus with the exception of the cave-dwelling Mexican bolitoglossine Chiropterotriton magnipes. Although webbed feet are a common characteristic of these salamanders, only about half of the species in this genus contain webbed feet.
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 southwards to Central and South America.
Gracixalus is a genus of shrub frogs from south-eastern Asia.
The Alsodidae are a small family of frogs from South America between Patagonia and southern Brazil. It contains 30 species in three genera. This family, along with several other families, used to be included in the family Leptodactylidae. It was then a subfamily in the family Cycloramphidae, before being recognized as a family first in 2011.
The Leiuperinae are a subfamily of frogs in the family Leptodactylidae. Over 90 species are in five genera. The distribution of this subfamily is from southern Mexico to the Central America and much of South America.
Marvalee Hendricks Wake is an American zoologist and professor at the University of California, Berkeley, known for her research in the biology of caecilians and vertebrate development and evolution. A 1988 Guggenheim Fellow, she has served as president of the American Institute of Biological Sciences, the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, International Union of Biological Sciences, and the International Society of Vertebrate Morphology. She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the California Academy of Sciences, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
References
- ↑ "DATABASE: Down at the Frog Pond". Science. 305 (5690): 1543. September 10, 2004. doi: 10.1126/science.305.5690.1543a . S2CID 220104410.
- ↑ All Things Considered (August 2, 2012). "Discovery Of 7,000th Amphibian Celebrated In Song". NPR. Retrieved April 10, 2022.
- 1 2 Robert Sanders (July 30, 2012). "Despite global amphibian decline, number of known species soars". University California at Berkeley. Retrieved July 2, 2020.
- ↑ AmphibiaWeb Team. "About Amphibiaweb". AmphibiaWeb. Retrieved April 10, 2022.
- ↑ Diane Schmidtt (2014). Using the Biological Literature: A Practical Guide (4 ed.). CRC Press. p. 320. ISBN 9781466558571 . Retrieved July 2, 2020.
- ↑ Richard Sandomir (May 19, 2021). "David Wake, Expert on Salamanders and Evolution, Dies at 84". New York Times. Retrieved June 4, 2021.
- ↑ Lisa Winter (May 21, 2021). "Salamander Expert David Wake Dies at 84". Scientist. Retrieved June 4, 2021.
- 1 2 "AmphibiaWeb Project". Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at Berkeley. Archived from the original on February 20, 2020. Retrieved July 2, 2020.
- ↑ Yap, T. A.; Koo, M. S.; Ambrose, R. F.; Vredenburg, V. T. (2018). "Introduced bullfrog facilitates pathogen invasion in the western United States". PLOS ONE. 13 (4): e0188384. Bibcode:2018PLoSO..1388384Y. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0188384 . PMC 5901863 . PMID 29659568.
- ↑ Richard M. Lehtinen; Frank Glaw; Miguel Vences; Andolalao Rakotoarison; Mark D. Scherz (2018). "Two new Pandanus frogs (Guibemantis: Mantellidae: Anura) from northern Madagascar". European Journal of Taxonomy (451). doi: 10.5852/ejt.2018.451 . S2CID 91855421 . Retrieved July 2, 2020.
- ↑ Mu L; Zhou L; Yang J (2017). "The first identified cathelicidin from tree frogs possesses anti-inflammatory and partial LPS neutralization activities". Amino Acids. 49 (9): 1571–1585. doi:10.1007/s00726-017-2449-7. PMC 5561178 . PMID 28593346.
- ↑ Zhan X; Wu H; Wu H (2020). "Metabolites from Bufo gargarizans (Cantor, 1842): A review of traditional uses, pharmacological activity, toxicity and quality control". Journal of Ethnopharmacology. J Ethnopharmacol. 246: 112178. doi:10.1016/j.jep.2019.112178. PMID 31445132. S2CID 208582111 . Retrieved July 2, 2020.
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