Cornufer Heffernani
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''Cornufer heffernani'', sometimes known as the Solomon Island palm frog, is a species of frog in the family
Ceratobatrachidae The Ceratobatrachidae are a family of frogs found in the Malay Peninsula, Borneo, the Philippines, Palau, Fiji, New Guinea, and the Admiralty, Bismarck, and Solomon Islands. Taxonomy Ceratobatrachidae was formerly treated as a subfamily (i.e ...
. It is endemic to the
Solomon Islands archipelago The Solomon Islands (archipelago) is an island group in the western South Pacific Ocean, north-east of Australia. The archipelago is in the Melanesian subregion and bioregion of Oceania and forms the eastern boundary of the Solomon Sea. The ...
where it can be found in at least Buka and
Bougainville Island Bougainville Island (Tok Pisin: ''Bogenvil'') is the main island of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, which is part of Papua New Guinea. It was previously the main landmass in the German Empire-associated North Solomons. Its land area is ...
s of Papua New Guinea and Choiseul and
Santa Isabel Island Santa Isabel Island (also known as Isabel, Ysabel and Mahaga) is the longest in Solomon Islands, the third largest in terms of surface area, and the largest in the group of islands in Isabel Province. Location and geographic data Choiseul lies t ...
s of the Solomon Islands, but probably also more widely. The
specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...
''heffernani'' honours Mr. N. S. Heffernan, who collected the
type series In biology, a type is a particular specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally attached. In other words, a type is an example that serves to anchor or centralizes the ...
.


Taxonomy

''Cornufer heffernani'' was until 2015 known as ''Palmatorappia solomonis'', the sole species of the genus ''Palmatorappia''. In a major revision of family Ceratobatrachidae, Brown and colleagues moved ''P. solomonis'' to the genus ''Cornufer'', leading to secondary
homonymy In linguistics, homonyms are words which are homographs (words that share the same spelling, regardless of pronunciation), or homophones (equivocal words, that share the same pronunciation, regardless of spelling), or both. Using this definition, ...
with '' Cornufer solomonis''. They solved this issue by resurrecting ''Cornufer heffernani'' as a substitute name. ''Palmatorappia'' could still be recognized as a monotypic subgenus ''Cornufer (Palmatorappia)''.


Description

''Cornufer heffernani'' has a small, delicate, slender body and limbs. A syntype specimen of ''Hylella solomonis'' in the Senckenberg Museum measures in
snout–vent length Snout–vent length (SVL) is a morphometric measurement taken in herpetology from the tip of the snout to the most posterior opening of the cloacal slit (vent)."direct line distance from tip of snout to posterior margin of vent" It is the most c ...
. The head is broader than the body and triangular in shape. The snout is broadly rounded and the eyes are large. The canthus rostralis and the tympanum are indistinct. The limbs are slender. Both the fingers and the toes are webbed and bear well-developed discs. Skin is smooth above but granular on the flanks, the belly, and under surface of the upper arm and thighs. Preserved specimens are purplish brown above and yellow below, fading to yellowish all over with time.


Habitat and conservation

''Cornufer heffernani'' is a very rare species that is found on low vegetation and trees in tropical rain forests. It can also be found in good-quality secondary forests. It has direct development, that is, it breeds without free-living tadpole stage. It is threatened by habitat loss caused by logging.


See also

* Solomon Island leaf frog (''
Ceratobatrachus guentheri ''Cornufer guentheri'', commonly known as the Solomon Island leaf frog, Solomon Island eyelash frog and Gunther's triangle frog, is a species of frog in the family Ceratobatrachidae. This frog can be found throughout the Solomon Islands archipela ...
'')


References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q65048343, from2=Q1067255 heffernani Amphibians of Papua New Guinea Amphibians of the Solomon Islands Taxa named by James Roy Kinghorn Amphibians described in 1928 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot