Ceratophrys prisca Ameghino, 1889

Nicoli, Laura, 2019, The fossil record of Ceratophrys Wied-Neuwied (Anura: Ceratophryidae): a revision and update of fossil South American horned frogs, Zootaxa 4658 (1), pp. 37-68 : 45

Ceratophrys prisca Ameghino, 1889

Ameghino (1899) named Ceratophrys prisca based on unidentified remains from the “Miocene of Monte Hermoso”. The remains were neither described nor illustrated, and the material not properly identified (i.e., collection numbers and institutional allocations were missing). In passing, Ameghino mentioned that C. prisca is extremely similar to C. ornata , from which it differs by having a smaller size, a shorter skull, and different dermal sculpturing ( Ameghino 1899).

Several years later, Rovereto (1914) assigned a series of fossil remains from Monte Hermoso to Ceratophrys prisca . He reported that four (unnumbered) skulls located in the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales “Bernardino Rivadavia” (MACN) might be referred to C. prisca , and suggested that one of the skulls, which he failed to identify, might be the holotype of the species named by Ameghino. Rovereto then designated one specimen as the “plesiotype” of C. prisca . The term “plesiotype” came into use in the 19th century to refer to a specimen figured or described as an example of an already named species ( Schuchert 1905), but it is not recognized in the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN). On the basis of the other fossil remains, Rovereto (1914) described three varieties of C. prisca—C. prisca var. sub-cornuta, C. prisca var. intermedia , and C. prisca var. gigantea —and identified which specimen represented each variety and illustrated all specimens examined (1914: lam. XXII, fig. 3.3). Three specimens are currently housed in the Colección de Paleontología de Vertebrados (PV) of the MACN. Although the specimens in this collection were not numbered until many years later (see Nicoli 2014), the identity of these three specimens (currently MACN 14317–9) was preserved in the collection records and is consistent with the published illustrations and legends of Rovereto (1914): “plesiotype” of C.prisca (MACN 14317), C. prisca var. subcornuta (MACN 14319), and C. prisca var. gigantea (MACN 14318). Neither the specimen assigned by Robereto to C. prisca var. intermedia nor MACN 14320 can be found (Martín Ezcurra, Curator PV-MACN, pers.comm.).

Fernicola (2001) reported that the Ameghino’s (1899) holotype of Ceratophrys prisca could not be identified or located in any collection. Consequently, this author considered this holotype lost and C. prisca as a species inquirenda. The material studied by Rovereto (1914) in the MACN became part of the type series of C. ameghinorum ( Fernicola 2001) .