The taxonomic status of Phyllonastes Heyer and Phrynopus peruvianus (Noble) (Lissamphibia, Anura): resurrection of Noblella Barbour
Between December 1899 and August 1900, H. H. Keays collected zoological specimens in Departamento Puno, southern Peru. He shipped to the American Museum of Natural History a series of amphibians purportedly obtained near Juliaca, a locality at 3824 m a.s.l., close to the Lake Titicaca. From this series, Noble (1921) described a tiny frog named as Sminthillus peruvianus. Until then, the genus Sminthillus Barbour and Noble contained only the small Cuban species S. limbatus (Cope), and the broad geographic gap between the two species, together with some morphological arguments, led Noble to consider this generic assignment as provisional. Later, Barbour (1930) erected the genus Noblella to accommodate S. limbatus, but he did not define nor diagnose the genus. Subsequently, Lynch (1971) synonymyzed Noblella with Eleutherodactylus Duméril and Bibron and, eventually (Lynch 1975), with Phrynopus Peters.