| Phyllomedusidae | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Burmeister's leaf frog (Phyllomedusa burmeisteri) | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Amphibia |
| Order: | Anura |
| Superfamily: | Hyloidea |
| Family: | Phyllomedusidae Gunther, 1858 |
| Diversity | |
| 8 genera, 66 species | |
Phyllomedusidae is a family of frogs that live in the Neotropics in North America, South America, and nearby islands. They are called leaf frogs in English. Some scientists say it is a subfamily of the family Hylidae, the tree frogs. Other scientists say it is a sister clade to Hylidae instead.
The family could be a sister group to the Australian treefrogs (Pelodryadidae), a family of frogs that live in Australia and New Guinea. Scientists think this is possible even though the two groups of frogs live very far away from each other, on different continents. All these frogs could have come from the same ancestor frog that lived in early Cenozoic in South America, where the Phyllomedusidae still live. The two families of frogs would have split from one another during the Eocene period. The ancestors of Pelodryadidae probably colonized Australasia from South America by going through Antarctica, which at the time was not yet frozen over. The clade with both families is sister to the Hylidae, from which they split apart in the early Paleogene.
