Strabomantidae

Strabomantidae
Noblella pygmaea
Scientific classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Amphibia
Order: Anura
Clade: Brachycephaloidea
Family: Strabomantidae
Hedges, Duellman & Heinicke, 2008

The Strabomantidae, sometimes called cloud forest landfrogs, are a family of frogs native to South America. These frogs lack a free-living larval stage and hatch directly into miniature "froglets". This family includes Pristimantis, the most speciose genus of any vertebrate. Based on molecular dating, the Holoadeninae in particular appears to have originated in the Eocene. The Oligocene-Miocene transition was also found to be important to their biogeographical history. However, the lack of Holoadeninae fossils and limited nucleotide data ambiguates the results, by the authors' admission.