Atelopus moreirae massarti Cochran, 1948

Notes on Atelopus moreirae massarti Cochran, 1948 View in CoL

Holotype. IRSNB I.G. 9308 . Reg. 57 (A), by original designation; subsequently reported as IRSNB 1.061 View Materials by Lang (1990) (Photographs examined; Fig. 3 A–C View FIGURE 3 ). Collected by J. Massart in February 1922.

Paratypes. IRSNB I.G. 9308 . Reg. 57 (B–G); subsequently reported by Lang (1990) as IRSNB 1.061 View Materials (4) and one specimen in the Field Museum, Division of Amphibians and Reptiles, Chicago, Illinois, USA ( FMNH 75330 About FMNH ). Cochran (1961) refers to two paratypes in the National Museum of Natural History, Division of Amphibians and Reptiles, Washington, USA ( USNM 124585–124586 About USNM ). All collected with the holotype .

Type locality. “Castanhal Grande near Obidos, Grâo Pará, Brazil ”.

Remarks. There are three labels with the types of Atelopus moreirae massarti ( Fig. 3 D View FIGURE 3 ). The first of them, hand written, refers that D.M. Cochran examined the specimens in 1945 and called them Atelopus moreirae massarti , as “Type, 5 ind.” These informations antedate the original publication ( Cochran, 1948). A second label, also hand written, refers to “ Phryniscus stelzneri moreirae (Miranda-Ribeiro) ”, “ 1 Type, 4 Paratypes ”, revised by B. Lutz in 1952. This evidence the opinion of B. Lutz that the subespecies proposed by Cochran (1948) was a synonym of that proposed by Miranda-Ribeiro (1920). A third label, posterior, typewritten, consolidates the above referred informations.

The type locality is controversial. Although explicitly referred as “Castanhal Grande near Obidos, Grâo Pará, Brazil ”, Bokermann (1967) disputed this information, arguing that the species was never obtained out of the Itatiaia mountains and the presence of a related taxon in latitude and altitude so different was very weird. Additionally, Bokermann (1967) reinforce that similar mistakes were found in the list of Witte, with species erroneously cited for the Itatiaia, including reptiles. However, Bokermann (1967) refrained to synonymize both taxa, arguing the necessity of re-examine the types to solve the question. Langone (2006) referred to other examples, as the provenience (“Itate, Bahia ”) of Hylodes brieni (currently Thoropa miliaris ) described by Witte (1930) based on specimens obtained by the Mission Massart, as a possible mistake; actually, the species occurs in the State of Bahia ( Feio et al., 2006). However, Langone (2006) was correct in to point that the reference of Witte (1930) to Pseudis limellum (currently Lysapsus limellum ) as occurring in Tijuca, Rio de Janeiro, in the State of Rio de Janeiro, and in Alto da Serra Reserve, Cubatão, State of São Paulo, was in error, since the genus and species do not occur in those regions ( Frost, 2024). Similarly, Witte (1930) refers to six specimens of Dendrophryniscus brevipollicatus obtained in the “Etat de Grao Para ” (currently State of Pará, Brasil), where positively the species does not occur ( Cruz et al., 2019). Members of the Mission Massart to Brazil between August 1922 and May 1923 effectively traveled in the State of Rio de Janeiro, including the Itatiaia region, and in the State of Pará ( Marchal, 1929). By the way, the change of data or the mixture of field labels cannot be discharged and very probably occurred with Atelopus moreirae massarti .

Finally, Langone (2006) examined the paratypes of Atelopus moreirae massarti deposited in the USNM and compared with topotypes of Melanophryniscus moreirae , concluding that they are indistinguishable and proposing that the subspecies should not be considered valid, having to be integrated to the specific binomen M. moreirae . Based on the direct comparisons of the type series and topotypes more recently obtained of M. moreirae with the high-resolution photographs of the holotype of Atelopus moreirae massarti , reinforced by the authoritative opinion of B. Lutz (expressed in one label of the specimen; see above), we perfectly agree with this synonymization