PROC. BIOL. SOC. WASH. 95(3), 1982, pp. 423^27 SYSTEMATIC RESOLUTION OF THE GENERA OF THE CRINIA COMPLEX (AMPHIBIA: ANURA: MYOBATRACHIDAE) W. Ronald Heyer, Charles H. Daugherty, and Linda R. Maxson Abstract. — Re-evaluation of morphological analyses and generic taxonomy of Australian myobatrachine frogs in the Crinia complex is undertaken in light of new genetic data. All species currently in the genera Ranidella and Crinia are assigned to Crinia. The genera Paracrinia and Geocrinia are retained. Four Australian genera, Ranidella, Crinia, Paracrinia, and Geocrinia (Myo-batrachidae: Myobatrachinae), collectively designated the ''Crinia complex," comprise a group of small, rather nondescript frogs (Heyer & Liem 1976). The species of this complex have been partitioned into genera by recent authors with differing results. All recent authors agree concerning the smallest groups of species clusters in this complex, but considerable disagreement exists regarding the as-signment of these groups at the generic level. Currently hypothesized groups and classifications are summarized in Table 1. The following morphological and behavioral characters differentiate the species clusters: vomer and vomerine teeth, omohyoideus muscle, outer metatarsal tu-bercle, belly texture, egg placement, and mating call. However, clustering algo-rithms provide no unequivocal pattern of relationships among these species: "There is no way to group the . . . taxa so that two of the derived states of these char-acters define the same assemblage. Rather, a grouping which results in a cluster having all the taxa with the same derived state of one character leads to conver-gence of states in the other characters" (Heyer and Liem 1976:9). Thus, the data presented by Heyer and Liem (1976) are certainly open to alternate clustering interpretations than theirs. The phenetic analyses of Blake (1973) and Thompson (1981) recognize the same basic species groups, but the clustering pattern of the groups was highly variable dependent on data scoring and the algorithm used. Within the Crinia complex, morphological variation is so limited that it has been impossible to achieve a stable clustering scheme and, hence, taxonomic consen-sus. For these cases where the nature of the morphological data preclude a de-finitive analysis of relationships, use of a different data base is required for anal-ysis of relationships. Daugherty and Maxson (in press) recently estimated genetic relationships among species of the Crinia complex based on MC'F (micro-complement fixation) data from the serum protein albumin. These genetic data, in concert with the mor-phological data, provide a new basis for determining evolutionary Hneages within the complex. The major lineages are herein proposed as generic units in order to provide a stable classification for this complex. The Genetic Data Immunological distances derived from comparisons of serum albumins provide both cladistic information and a time framework for interpreting evolutionary
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