In addition to the strictly aquatic or   semiaquatic habitat, four other adaptive zones can be recognized for ranid   frogs: arboreal, rocky, fossorial, and torrential. This diversity indicates   that various lineages of ranid frogs evolved adaptations that allowed them to   shift to new adaptive zones which are comparable to those observed for   plethodontid salamanders (36). A remarkable outcome of our analyses is that   convergences of adult characters were often paralleled by convergences of   other characters in the corresponding larvae. For example, some Asian   rhacophorines (e.g., genus Philautus) and Madagascan species of the genus   Mantidactylus that are adapted to the arboreal zone (green boxes, Fig. 2),   also present larvae with direct development on trees (i.e., complete metamorphosis   in the egg without free-swimming tadpole stage).

蛙类除了严格的水生或半水生栖息地外，还能找到其它四个适应性生境：树栖、岩石、洞穴和湍流。这种多样性表明，各种各样的蛙科支系进化出，使它们能够转移到新的适应区的适应能力，这与对蝾螈的观察差不多（36）。我们分析的一个显著结果是，成年性状的趋同常常与相应幼体中其他性状的趋同平行。例如，一些亚洲树蛙科动物（例如，小树蛙属）和马达加斯加螂指蛙属（Mantidactylus），它们适应于树栖区（绿箱注，图2），它们的幼体也都在树上直接发育（即，完全卵内变态发育，没有自由游动的蝌蚪阶段）。