SPHENOPHRYNE - American Museum of Natural History

8 BULLETIN AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY NO. 253
and boundaries shown in King and Ranck
(1982: 19). Where alternate (parenthetical)
names are given, I have used the primary
(older) one unless an alternative is well established
(see table 1). In the same publication,
another useful map (p. 17) compares
province boundaries as of 1950 and 1980.
Many museum records for specimens from
Papua New Guinea specify villages that appear
only on the most detailed maps. Fortunately,
there exists an excellent series of topographic
maps for all of Papua New Guinea
(Papua New Guinea 1:100,000 survey) upon
which, with diligence, many of the more obscure
villages can be located. An additional
complication, however, is that villages do not
always remain on the same spot, sometimes
moving with slash and burn agriculture.
I have converted distances and elevations
given in miles and feet in original records to
kilometers and meters.
GENERA
I have pointed out in the introduction that
the genus Sphenophryne as defined and diagnosed
by Parker (1934) is not a defensible
monophyletic group. The sole diagnostic
character—the structure of the pectoral girdle—is
a primitive state shared by the species
Parker recognized as well as by others
subsequently described. In my investigation
of the species currently assigned to Sphenophryne
as well as of undescribed species that
fit the diagnosis used since Parker (1934), I
have found no derived character that serves
to unite all these species and validate Sphenophryne
as a monophyletic clade. The diversity
of the assemblage is greater than had
been appreciated, but the species still do not
fall into trenchant groups, either by criteria
of shared derived characters or by traditional
methods involving unpolarized similarities. I
have, nevertheless, chosen to recognize four
genera, for all of which the literature provides
names. I think that the arrangement I
adopt has a fair likelihood of grouping related
species together and thus improves on the
current situation. There is no implication,
however, that the four genera recognized are
RECORDINGS
SYSTEMATICS
The tape recordings of frog calls used in
this research came from a variety of sources,
so differences in tape recorders and changes
introduced in copying tapes are potential
sources of variation. However, none of the
calls compared differ in such subtle ways
that these sources of error would be significant.
The audiospectrograms and waveforms illustrated
were produced on a Kay 5500 DSP
Sona-Graph. I made my analyses of calls—
measurements of rates, note and call durations,
dominant frequencies—with the aid of
the CECIL computerized speech analysis
system (Hunt, 1993). Originals or copies of
the tape recordings used are, with one exception,
stored and cataloged in the Department
of Herpetology, American Museum of Natural
History (details are in the species accounts
or tables).
more closely related to one another than they
are to any other genyophrynine genera.
KEY TO GENERA
The user of this key should first determine
whether the specimen in question has elongate
clavicles that extend from the scapula to
near the midline of the pectoral girdle. If not,
the specimen belongs to a genus other than
one of those treated here. If the clavicles are
as described, it should be verified that there
is no bony omosternum. If such is found, the
specimen is likely to be a ranid and not a
microhylid. Ranids of the genus Platymantis
are especially likely to be confused with microhylids.
This key is intended to apply to
adult frogs; juveniles may differ in critical
body proportions.
1. A single pointed tubercle on each eyelid; tips
of digits (except 1st finger) broadened into
flattened discs broader than penultimate phalanges,
disc on 3rd finger broader than that
on4thtoe .............. Sphenophryne
No eyelid tubercle; fingers without terminal
discs or if discs present, that on 4th toe
broader or rarely equal to that on 3rd finger
................................. 2