''Sarcohyla'' is a genus of

frog A frog is any member of a diverse and largely Carnivore, carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order (biology), order Anura (ανοὐρά, literally ''without tail'' in Ancient Greek). The oldest fossil "proto-f ...

s in the family Hylidae. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

and is found in the montane parts of the country between Durango in the north and Guerrero in the south. These frogs typically occur in pristine habitats along streams in pine-oak woodland at elevations between

above sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as ''orthometric heights''. The comb ...

. The generic name is derived from the Greek ''sarkodes'' meaning "fleshy" in combination with '' Hylas'' and refers to the thick, glandular skin characteristic of most of the species in the genus.

Description

''Sarcohyla'' are moderate to large-sized frogs. They have thick, glandular skin. Osteological characteristics include enlarged prepollex without a projecting spine and the alary process of the

premaxilla The premaxilla (or praemaxilla) is one of a pair of small cranial bones at the very tip of the upper jaw of many animals, usually, but not always, bearing teeth. In humans, they are fused with the maxilla. The "premaxilla" of therian mammal has b ...

that is not bifurcate posteriorly.

Taxonomy

''Sarcohyla'' was erected in 2016 based on molecular data. It contains species that were allocated to "'' Hyla bistincta''" and "'' Hyla arborescandens'' groups" by Duellman in 2001 and to "''Plectrohyla bistincta'' group" in some later works. Its

sister group In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree. Definition The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram: Taxon A and t ...

is '' Plectrohyla''. Not all species of the genus were included in the molecular analysis, and there is some concern that the omitted species could challenge monophyly of the genus.

Species

The genus contains 26 species:

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q28042939 Amphibian genera Amphibians of North America Endemic amphibians of Mexico Taxa named by William Edward Duellman Taxa named by Stephen Blair Hedges