Abstract

Most species of the frog genus Leptodactylus lack common names. Common names are those names used by different human cultures and societies for the species of animals and plants where humans and biota reside together. Often times common names are lacking for Neotropical frogs or are broad in scope. For example, indigenous people may have a single name for frogs that occur on the ground and another name for frogs that occur in shrubs and trees, even though there are many species of ground frogs called by the same name as well as for the tree frogs. Sometimes colonists have used the same names as indigenous peoples, but often colonists use different names (usually imported from their own geographic origin), as they did not understand the indigenous word or words involved. Therefore, there may be different names used by humans for the same frogs at the same places -- this is particularly true when more than one language or dialect is spoken in a given geographic area.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2005

Publisher Statement

Copyright © 2005 Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles. This article first appeared in Herpetological Review 36, no. 2 (2005): 119-20.

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