Abstract
Mechkarska et al. (2011) recently provided an analysis of antimicrobial peptides in two species in the frog family Pipidae — Xenopus andrei and "Silurana paratropicalis". We provide a review of the species associated with the latter taxon name and argue that this is not a valid name. The species that Mecharksa et al. (2011) referred to as "Silurana paratropicalis" apparently was first mentioned by Graf & Fischberg (1986) as Xenopus "species nova VIT a tetraploid species with 40 chromosomes that wascollected from two sites in Cameroon (Longyi and Nkoemvone). Tymowska (1991) described and illustrated the karyotype for "Xenopus sp. nov. VII" and explicitly proposed that this species is closely related to the tetraploid X. epitropicalis and diploid X.tropicalis. Tymowska (1991) indicated that a description was in preparation, but no formal description was published subsequently. Two years later, three publications (Flajnik et al. 1993; Sato et al. 1993; Shum et al. 1993) used the name "Xenopus paratropicalis" for a tetraploid 40-chromosome species obtained from the Universite de Geneve, the same institution at which "Xenopus sp. nov. VII" was bred for work by Graf & Fischberg (1986) and Tymowska (1991). The following year, Herrmann (1994) also briefly mentioned "Silurana paratropicalis" as a "form assigned to epitropicalis" (our translation). To the best of our knowledge, all of these authors (Graf & Fischberg 1986; Tymowska 1991; Flajnik et al. 1993; Sato etal. 1993; Shum et al. 1993; Herrmann 1994) were referring to the same species bred in Geneve. Salamone (2006) provided a short synopsis of a graduate thesis detailing the description of "Silurana paratropicalis" and another species of Xenopus, but this note, published in a newsletter, does not contain a description; these descriptions remain unpublished. Herrmann (1994), Salamone (2006), and Mechkarska et al. (2011) refer "paratropicalis" to Silurana following Cannatella & Trueb (1988), though Pauly et al. (2009) recently suggested that recognizing Silurana as a genus distinct from Xenopus was a "mistaken" taxonomic decision. To our knowledge, Herrmann (1994), Salamone (2006), Mechkarska et al. (2011) are the only publications to mention "paratropicalis" since 1993.
NSTL