True frogs is the common name for the frog family Ranidae. They have the widest distribution of any frog family. They are abundant throughout most of the world, occurring on all continents except Antarctica. The true frogs are present in North America, northern South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. The Asian range extends across the East Indies to New Guinea and a single species, the Australian wood frog, has spread into the far north of Australia.
The edible frog is a hybrid species of common European frog, also known as the common water frog or green frog.
The Alytidae are a family of primitive frogs. Their common name is painted frogs or midwife toads. Most are endemic to Europe, but three species occur in northwest Africa, and a species formerly thought to be extinct is found in Israel.
The marsh frog is a species of water frog native to Europe and parts of western Asia.
Rana is a genus of frogs commonly known as the Holarctic true frogs, pond frogs or brown frogs. Members of this genus are found through much of Eurasia and western North America. Many other genera were formerly included here. These true frogs are usually largish species characterized by their slim waists and wrinkled skin; many have thin ridges running along their backs, but they generally lack "warts" as in typical toads. They are excellent jumpers due to their long, slender legs. The typical webbing found on their hind feet allows for easy movement through water. Coloration is mostly greens and browns above, with darker and yellowish spots.
The pool frog is a European frog in the family Ranidae. Its specific name was chosen by the Italian herpetologist Lorenzo Camerano in 1882, in order to honour his master Michele Lessona.
The Levant water frog or Bedriaga's frog, formerly belonging to the genus Rana, is a southern European species of frog. They are green to brown in color with dark blotches on their dorsal side. They are cousins of the aquatic frogs and live most of the time in the water. They are not poisonous and are quite large, especially the females. It has been introduced in some countries where it was not native, one of which is Malta. First kept as a pet, then recently during the 1990s, it was deliberately introduced to a number of fresh water rock pools in Gozo, where in one it sustains a large population. Though a prolific and invasive species, it is restricted to constant fresh water supply, so it cannot spread naturally on its own on arid Mediterranean islands.
The Seoul frog or Seoul pond frog is a species of true frog found on the southern and western Korean Peninsula and possibly Liaoning of China. It is closely related to the eastern golden frog, P. plancyi, and was long considered a subspecies thereof. Also known as gold-spotted pond frog, it is in fact not a true pond frog of genus Rana, but belongs to the water frogs now again separated in Pelophylax.
The Italian edible frog is a hybridogenic species in the true frog family Ranidae. These frogs are the offspring of P. bergeri and either P. ridibundus or the edible frog which is itself of hybrid origin.
Dactylosoma is a genus of parasitic alveolates of the phylum Apicomplexa.
Parthenogenesis is a form of reproduction where eggs develop without fertilization, resulting in unisexual species. This phenomenon is closely related with reproductive modes such as hybridogenesis, where fertilization occurs, but the paternal DNA is not passed on. Among amphibians, it is seen in numerous frog and salamander species, but has not been recorded in caecilians.
The fertile hybrids of European water frogs reproduce by hybridogenesis (hemiclonally). This means that during gametogenesis, they discard the genome of one of the parental species and produce gametes of the other parental species. The first parental genome is restored by fertilization of these gametes with gametes from the first species. In all-hybrid populations of the edible frog Pelophylax kl. esculentus, however, triploid hybrids provide this missing genome.
Leszek Berger was a Polish herpetologist and malacologist.
