The first comprehensive description of the skeleton of Atelopus muisca Rueda-Almonacid & Hoyos, 1991 (Bufonidae, Anura) from the Chingaza Natural National Park (Colombia) is provided, and comparisons with some characters described for this species by Coloma and related frogs of the group A. ignescens are done. The humerus of male presenting more developed crista ventralis and crista lateralis, ...

Air-breathing tadpoles of Xenopus laevis (Amphibia: Anura) use buccopharyngeal surfaces for both gas exchange and capture of food particles in the water. In dense food suspensions, tadpoles decrease ventilation of the buccopharynx and increase air breathing. The lung ventilatory frequency is elevated even though the rate of oxygen consumption is at or below resting levels, suggesting that the l...

Previously, we reported that an opsin (Rc-MS) belonging to the SWS2 group opsins is expressed in bullfrog green rods [Hisatomi, O. et al., FEBS Lett., 1999, 447, 44-48]. An anti-Rc-MS antiserum recognized the cones of the Japanese common newt, Cynops pyrrhogaster, which has no green rods. We isolated a cDNA encoding an SWS2 group opsin (Cp-SWS2) from this newt and found that Cp-SWS2 is expresse...

Amphibia and its major groups are defined according to principles of phylogenetic taxonomy, and the implications of the definitions for amphibian systematics are discussed. The results of phylogenetic analyses of Amphibia, Anura, Caudata, and Gymnophiona from morphological and molecular studies are compared, based on papers published in the symposium "Amphibian relationships: Phylogenetic analy...

Exceptional diversity of Stefania (Anura, Cryptobatrachidae) II: Six species from Mount Wokomung, Guyana. Six species of Stefania were collected on Mount Wokomung, a tepui in the Pakaraima Mountains of Guyana. This unusually high diversity of Stefania is similar to that found on a neighbouring tepui, Mt. Ayanganna. The two tepuis support slightly different habitats. Conspecific Stefania from th...

Frogs assigned to the monotypic genus Madecassophryne (Anura, Microhylidae, Cophylinae), and possibly belonging to Madecassophryne truebae, were found in December 2016 in two low-altitude localities, Ambahavala and Kapilavato, in the Anosy Mountain in southeastern Madagascar. This poorly known genus was described in 1974 based on osteology, and neither verifiably identified photos of living spe...

Two amphibian species from China are designated by the specific nomen shuichengensis, which refers to the Shuicheng County (26°34'N, 104°51'E), south of the city of Liupanshui in the province of Guizhou: Megophrys shuichengensis (Amphibia, Anura) and Pseudohynobius shuichengensis (Amphibia, Urodela). The holotypes (holophoronts) of both species were deposited in Department of Biology of the Liu...