Amphibia, Anura, Hylidae, Scarthyla vigilans (Solano, 1971): range extension and new country record for Trinidad, West Indies, with notes on tadpoles, habitat, behavior and biogeographical significance

Abstract

We report a range extension and new country record for Scarthyla vigilans in Trinidad, West Indies. The species was previously known only from populations on mainland South America. We include notes on behavior, habitat and tadpole development, and discuss the biogeographical significance of the species’ presence in Trinidad, particularly with respect to consequences for understanding colonization events on this Caribbean island.

The phylogeny of Dendropsophini (Anura: Hylidae: Hylinae)

“…Lineage 8 corresponds to D. stingi and its original description does not provide a comparison with D. amicorum (see Kaplan, 1994). Lineages 1 to 6 are distributed over the Guiana Shield, and Gehara et al (2014) suggested that they might correspond to D. goughi , at the time a synonym of D. minutus based on specimens from Trinidad—a reasonable suggestion given that many species from Trinidad are also found in the lowlands of Venezuela and Colombia (Kenny, 1969; Suarez‐Mayorga and Lynch, 2001a; Suarez‐Mayorga and Lynch, 2001b; Barrio‐Amoros et al, 2006; Camargo et al, 2006; Smith et al, 2011). Recently, Barrio‐Amorós et al, (2019) re‐examined the holotype of Dendropsophus goughi and came to the conclusion that it should be considered a junior synonym of D. microcephalus .…”