Telmatobius

Telmatobius
Telmatobius species from altiplano lakes in northern Chile.
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Amphibia
Order: Anura
Suborder: Neobatrachia
Superfamily: Hyloidea
Family: Telmatobiidae
Fitzinger, 1843
Genus: Telmatobius
Wiegmann, 1834
Diversity
63 species (see text)
Synonyms

Batrachophrynus Peters, 1873

Telmatobius is a group of frogs that live in the Andean mountains and other high places in South America, in Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, northwestern Argentina and northern Chile. It is the only genus in the family Telmatobiidae. Some scientists say Batrachophrynus is its own genus, separate Telmatobius.

Name

The word Telmatobius is from the Greek: τέλμα (télma, "swamp") and βίος (bios, "life").

Home and danger

All Telmatobius species live near water and most of them spend a lot of time in the water. A few of these frogs spend all their time in the water. They live in and near lakes, rivers, and other watery places in the Andean highlands. People have seen them between 1,000 and 5,200 m (3,300–17,100 ft). The group Telmatobius has two of the world's biggest water frogs, the Lake Junin frog (T. macrostomus) and Titicaca water frog (T. culeus), but the other frogs in this group are smaller. The species with the biggest tadpoles tend to live in higher places, for example T. culeus, T. macrostomus, T. mayoloi, and T. gigas. Telmatobius has more than 60 species; most of them in some danger of dying out, especially from people changing the places where they live, pollution, diseases (chytridiomycosis and nematode infections), animals from other parts of the world for example trout, and humans catching the frogs to eat.

The three frogs that live in Ecuador have not been seen for years and may already be all dead: T. cirrhacelis was last seen in 1981, T. niger in 1994, and T. vellardi in 1987. Seven of the fifteen frogs in Bolivia have not been seen for years. However, some might still be alive: the Bolivian T. yuracare had not been seen in the wild in ten years and there was only a single male frog living with humans. People found a few wild frogs in 2019.

Species

Scientists put 63 species in this group, but other scientists say some of them should be in other groups. Scientists also say there may be frogs that no one has written papers about yet that belong in this group.


References

  1. 1 2 Frost, Darrel R. (2017). "Telmatobius Wiegmann, 1834". Amphibian Species of the World: an Online Reference. Version 6.0. American Museum of Natural History. Retrieved 9 February 2017.
  2. ↑ Frost, Darrel R. (2015). "Telmatobiidae Fitzinger, 1843". Amphibian Species of the World: an Online Reference. Version 6.0. American Museum of Natural History. Retrieved 23 May 2015.
  3. ↑ Blackburn, D.C.; Wake, D.B. (2011). "Class Amphibia Gray, 1825. In: Zhang, Z.-Q. (Ed.) Animal biodiversity: An outline of higher-level classification and survey of taxonomic richness" (PDF). Zootaxa. 3148: 39–55. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.3148.1.8.
  4. ↑ "Telmatobiidae". AmphibiaWeb: Information on amphibian biology and conservation. [web application]. Berkeley, California: AmphibiaWeb. 2015. Retrieved 23 May 2015.
  5. 1 2 3 Angulo, A. (2008). Conservation Needs of Batrachophrynus and Telmatobius Frogs of the Andes of Peru. Conservation & Society 6(4): 328–333. DOI: 10.4103/0972-4923.49196
  6. ↑ Victoriano, Muñoz-Mendoza, Sáez, Salinas, Muñoz-Ramírez, Sallaberry, Fibla and Méndez (2015). Evolution and Conservation on Top of the World: Phylogeography of the Marbled Water Frog (Telmatobius marmoratus Species Complex; Anura, Telmatobiidae) in Protected Areas of Chile. J.Hered. 106 (S1): 546–559. DOI: 10.1093/jhered/esv039
  7. ↑ Halliday, T. (2016). The Book of Frogs: A Life-Size Guide to Six Hundred Species from around the World. University Of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0226184654
  8. ↑ Barrionuevo, J. Sebastián (September 2018). "Growth and cranial development in the Andean frogs of the genus Telmatobius (Anura: Telmatobiidae): Exploring the relation of heterochrony and skeletal diversity". Journal of Morphology. 279 (9): 1269–1281. doi:10.1002/jmor.20855. hdl:11336/96454. ISSN 0362-2525.
  9. 1 2 Stuart, Hoffmann, Chanson, Cox, Berridge, Ramani and Young, editors (2008). Threatened Amphibians of the World. ISBN 978-84-96553-41-5
  10. 1 2 Mayer, L.R. (14 February 2019). "A Tale Of Two Frogs (And Some Of The Biologists Who Love Them)". Global Wildlife Conservation. Retrieved 24 January 2020.
  11. ↑ De la Riva (2005). Bolivian frogs of the genus Telmatobius: synopsis, taxonomic comments, and description of a new species. Monogr. Herpetol. 7:65-101.
  12. ↑ Sáez, Fibla, Correa, Sallaberry, Salinas, Veloso, Mella, Iturra, and Méndez (2014). A new endemic lineage of the Andean frog genus Telmatobius (Anura, Telmatobiidae) from the western slopes of the central Andes. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 171: 769–782.

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