back to comparative morphology Ancient frogs Hylids part I Bufonids part I Bufonids part II Ranoides part I   Eleutherodactylus coqui Puerto-Rican coqui family: Brachycephalidae (now Terrarana: Eleutherodactylidae) Hyla cinerea Green treefrog family: Hylidae

Dendrobates auratus Green and black poison dart frog family: Dendrobatidae

Leptodactylus albilabris White-lipped frog family: Leptodactylidae

Along the middle of the Hyloides trunk, the Hylidae form the third branch beyond the Brachycephalidae. In their 2006 paper, Frost et al. noted the paucity of data regarding the then huge genus Eleutherodactylus and considered placement of its members in their tree problematic. The 2008 Hedges et al. paper clarifies the genus Eleutherodactylus and its connection to the Brachycephalidae. The Brachycephalidae branch now is much more complex-- as one might expect for a branch containing more than one eighth of the known living anurans. For now we can be comfortable in the placement of our Puerto Rican members of Eleutherodactylus in that branch. The branch (Diphybatrachia) containing the Leptodactylidae is one step beyond the Hylidae branch. In our eight Eleutherodactylus species we found conspicuous caudal extensions in every AP, but the number of hair cells in the caudal extension, relative to the number in the rest of the AP, varied markedly from species to species. Having examined APs from only this one leptodactylid species (L. albilabris), and assuming our placement of the Puerto-Rican Eleutherodactylus is correct, we have no information about the variation in the leptodactylids. For the Puerto-Rican Eleutherodactlus species, we argued that the variation in relative size of the caudal extension is related to species-to-species variation in the dynamic spectrum of the advertisement call. Lewis, Hecht & Narins, 1992 In light of a recent paper by Corinne L. Richards (J. Evol. Biol, 19: 1222-1230, 2006) this argument should be revisited. The dendrobatids form the next to the last branch of the Hyloides limb, just before the bufonids.