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''Dryophytes'' is a genus of Ameroasian tree frogs in the family
Hylidae Hylidae is a wide-ranging family of frogs commonly referred to as "tree frogs and their allies". However, the hylids include a diversity of frog species, many of which do not live in trees, but are terrestrial or semiaquatic. Taxonomy and ...
. They are found mostly in North America, but the genus also includes three species found in eastern
Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...
.


Description

''Dryophytes'' consists of small tree-dwelling
frog A frog is any member of a diverse and largely carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order Anura (ανοὐρά, literally ''without tail'' in Ancient Greek). The oldest fossil "proto-frog" ''Triadobatrachus'' is ...
s, usually green or gray in color. They have digits ending with expanded discs to help them sick to surfaces like trees.


Habitat

These
tree frog A tree frog (or treefrog) is any species of frog that spends a major portion of its lifespan in trees, known as an arboreal state. Several lineages of frogs among the Neobatrachia have given rise to treefrogs, although they are not closely rela ...
s are found in
wetland A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The p ...
s throughout their range, as well as in
temperate forest A temperate forest is a forest found between the tropical and boreal regions, located in the temperate zone. It is the second largest biome on our planet, covering 25% of the world's forest area, only behind the boreal forest, which covers abou ...
s both on the ground and in trees.


Taxonomy

The genus was first described by Fitzinger in 1843. Later it was placed into the genus ''
Hyla ''Hyla'' is a genus of frogs in the tree frog family Hylidae. As traditionally defined, it was a wastebasket genus with more than 300 species found in Europe, Asia, Africa, and across the Americas. After a major revision of the family most of th ...
'', the true tree frogs, by Boulenger in 1882. Fouquette and Dubois 2014, treated ''Dryophytes'' as a subgenus of ''Hyla''. ''Dryophytes'' was finally resurrected as an independent genus by Duellman et al. in 2016. Only geographical, rather than morphological, differences separates ''Dryophytes'' from the genus ''Hyla''. ''Hyla'' is found only in the Old World, whereas ''Dryophytes'' is distributed in the
New World The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. ...
. Most members occur in North America, but four species are found in eastern temperate Asia; ''D. immaculata'', ''D. japonica'', ''D. flaviventris'' and ''D. suweonensis''.


Species

The genus ''Dryophytes'' contains 20 species.


References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q28041740 Amphibian genera Hylinae Amphibians of Asia Amphibians of Central America Amphibians of North America Taxa named by Leopold Fitzinger