Brachycephaloidea

Brachycephaloids
Brachycephalus pitanga
Pristimantis elegans
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Amphibia
Order:	Anura
Superfamily:	Hyloidea
Clade:	Brachycephaloidea
Families
Brachycephalidae Caligophrynidae Ceuthomantidae Craugastoridae Eleutherodactylidae Neblinaphrynidae Strabomantidae

Brachycephaloidea (or Terrarana) is a large monophyletic unranked clade of direct-developing frogs including more than 1,100 species, comprising about 15% of named frog species. ^{[1] [2]} Brachycephaloids inhabit the New World tropics, subtropics, and Andean regions. The group has undergone extensive changes in its taxonomy thanks to multiple molecular phylogenetic analyses in recent years. ^{[3] [4]} Until 2008, these species were placed in a single, large family (Brachycephalidae). ^[1]

The diverse Brachycephaloidea contains several notable taxa. It includes the smallest known vertebrates, in the genus Brachycephalus (family Brachycephalidae): B. pulex and B. dacnis . ^{[5] [6]} It also holds the most specious vertebrate genus, Pristimantis (family Strabomantidae). ^[7]

The cladogram below illustrates the relationships between families in the Brachycephaloidea, following Fouquet et al. (2024): ^[2]

Brachycephaloidea	Ceuthomantidae Neblinaphrynidae Craugastoridae Strabomantidae Eleutherodactylidae Caligophrynidae Brachycephalidae

References

1. Hedges, S. Blair; Duellman, William E.; Heinicke, Matthew P. (2008-03-31). "New World direct-developing frogs (Anura: Terrarana): Molecular phylogeny, classification, biogeography, and conservation" . Zootaxa. 1737 (1): 1–182–1–182. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.1737.1.1. ISSN   1175-5334.
2. Fouquet, Antoine; Kok, Philippe J.R.; Recoder, Renato Sousa; Prates, Ivan; Camacho, Agustin; Marques-Souza, Sergio; Ghellere, José Mario; McDiarmid, Roy W.; Rodrigues, Miguel Trefaut (February 2024). "Relicts in the mist: Two new frog families, genera and species highlight the role of Pantepui as a biodiversity museum throughout the Cenozoic". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 191 107971. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2023.107971.
3. Padial, José M.; Grant, Taran; Frost, Darrel R. (2014-06-26). "Molecular systematics of terraranas (Anura: Brachycephaloidea) with an assessment of the effects of alignment and optimality criteria". Zootaxa. 3825: 1–132. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.3825.1.1. ISSN   1175-5334. PMID   24989881.
4. Barrientos, Lucas S.; Streicher, Jeffrey W.; Miller, Elizabeth C.; Pie, Marcio R.; Wiens, John J.; Crawford, Andrew J. (2021-10-03). "Phylogeny of terraranan frogs based on 2,665 loci and impacts of missing data on phylogenomic analyses". Systematics and Biodiversity. 19 (7): 818–833. doi:10.1080/14772000.2021.1933249. ISSN   1477-2000.
5. Bolaños, Wendy H.; Dias, Iuri Ribeiro; Solé, Mirco (2024-02-07). "Zooming in on amphibians: Which is the smallest vertebrate in the world?" . Zoologica Scripta . 53 (4): 414–418. doi:10.1111/zsc.12654. eISSN   1463-6409. ISSN   0300-3256. S2CID   267599475.
6. Toledo, Luís Felipe; Botelho, Lucas Machado; Carrasco-Medina, Andres Santiago; Gray, Jaimi A.; Ernetti, Julia R.; Gama, Joana Moura; Lyra, Mariana Lucio; Blackburn, David C.; Nunes, Ivan; Muscat, Edelcio (2024-10-25). "Among the world's smallest vertebrates: a new miniaturized flea-toad (Brachycephalidae) from the Atlantic rainforest". PeerJ . 12 e18265. doi: 10.7717/peerj.18265 . ISSN   2167-8359. PMC   11514764 . PMID   39469590.
7. Rojas-Runjaic, Fernando J. M.; C, J. Amanda Delgado; Guayasamin, Juan M. (2014-03-20). "A new rainfrog of the Pristimantis myersi Group (Amphibia, Craugastoridae) from Volcán Pichincha, Ecuador". Zootaxa . 3780 (1): 36–50. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.3780.1.2. ISSN   1175-5334.