Hyla

Hyla Temporal range: 37.2–0 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N Eocene to recent
European tree frog, Hyla arborea
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Amphibia
Order:	Anura
Family:	Hylidae
Subfamily:	Hylinae
Genus:	Hyla Laurenti, 1768
Species
See text

Hyla is a genus of tree frogs in the family Hylidae. Over the years, scientists have changed their minds about which frog species should be in Hyla and which should be in Litoria, Ranoidea or other genera. At one time, Hyla had more than 300 species from Europe, Asia, Africa, and across the Americas. Now, Hyla has only 17 extant (living) species. They are from Europe, northern Africa and Asia.^[1] The earliest known fossil from a Hyla frog is †Hyla swanstoni from the Eocene. The fossil was found in Saskatchewan, Canada,^[2] but it is not clear whether we would consider swanstoni a Hyla frog today.

Josephus Nicolaus Laurenti made the genus in 1768. He named it after Hylas from Greek mythology. Hylas was a friend of Hercules. Even though the mythological person Hylas was male, the name Hyla is given the feminine grammatical gender.

Some people say this word comes from the Greek word ὕλη (hūlē, "forest" or "wood"), but it does not.^[3][4]

1. ↑ Faivovich, J.; Haddad, C.F.B.; Garcia, P.C.A.; Frost, D.R.; Campbell, J.A.; Wheeler, W.C., 2005: Systematic Review of the Frog Family Hylidae, with Special Reference to Hylinae: Phylogenetic Analysis and Taxonomic Revision. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, Num. 294, pp.1-240. (http://digitallibrary.amnh.org/dspace/bitstream/2246/462/1/B294.pdf Archived 2007-02-21 at the Wayback Machine)
2. ↑ "Fossilworks: Hyla". fossilworks.org. Archived from the original on 2020-02-08. Retrieved 2019-05-31.
3. ↑ Charles W. Myers & Richard B. Stothers (2006). "The myth of Hylas revisited: the frog name Hyla and other commentary on Specimen medicum (1768) of J. N. Laurenti, the "father of herpetology"". Archives of Natural History. 33 (2): 241–266. doi:10.3366/anh.2006.33.2.241.
4. ↑ "hyla". Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. 2nd ed. 1989. It gives the 'wood' etymology.