FROGS OF SOUTHEASTERN BRAZIL — COCHRAN 55 



relatively streamlined bodies, and other characters in common with 

 the species chosen as typical of the group, H. albopunctata. Group 5 

 is the H. rubra group, nearly all of whose members may be told by 

 the verj'' mde tibia, and most of which have a characteristic marbled 

 dark-and-light pattern on groin and femur. The predominantly 

 green frogs may be placed in Group 6, although other green forms, 

 such as those of the aurantiaca group, are not closely related to these. 

 Group 7 contains the few species having short, blunt heads, an axilar 

 winglike membrane, a femur with a large chocolate or reddish brown 

 area posteriorly, and a rather characteristic dark dorsal pattern set 

 off by tubercles; this group is exemplified by H. marmorata senicula. 

 The excessively slender frogs are contained in Group 8 and the 

 hatchet-faced aurantiaca allies in Group 9. Group 10, containing 

 only anceps, and Group 11, containing only goeldii, do not link up 

 closely with any other Brazilian forms represented in the material 

 at hand from the Kmited territory under consideration. 



1. venulosa — group 



Three species of Hyla, venulosa, rnesophaea and imitafrix, appear to 

 form a closely related group characterized by several distinctive 

 features: The wide head and rounded snout; the very similar propor- 

 tions of limb and body; the large size of the adult; and, perhaps the 

 most distinctive feature of all, the peculiar, overdeveloped vocal 

 pouches of the male lying underneath the loose skin along the side of 

 the neck below the tympanum. Of these, venulosa has by far the 

 greatest range, being known from Central America southwards 

 through most of the South American Continent to the Argentine; 

 mesophaea ranges in Brazil from Espirito Santo and Bahia in the 

 north to Rio Grande do Sul in the south; ijnitatrix, the most recently 

 described of the three, is at present only known from Teres6polis, in 

 the State of Rio de Janeiro. 



William E. Duellman, now engaged in a comprehensive study of the 

 venulosa group, writes in a letter of Oct. 29, 1953: "I am now consid- 

 ering venulosa to be a nomen dubium, the original description of 

 which was based upon a ranidlike frog in Seba, and later misapplied 

 by Daudin to the liylid that has been masquerading under that name 

 for 150 years." Duellman considers the name hebes Cope apphcable 

 to those frogs occurring from the Sao Francisco drainage in Minas 

 Gerais southward and westward through Paraguay into northern 

 Argentina. Until the appearance of his paper, I think it best to 

 retain the old name venulosa for the group as well as for the frogs 

 from Minas Gerais, Sao Paulo, and Paraguay discussed in the follow- 

 ing pages. 



