Pyxicephalus adspersus Tschudi, 1838

Baptista, Ninda L., António, Telmo & Branch, William R., 2019, The herpetofauna of Bicuar National Park and surroundings, southwestern Angola: a preliminary checklist, Amphibian & Reptile Conservation (e 203) 13 (2), pp. 96-130 : 106

Pyxicephalus adspersus Tschudi, 1838

African Bullfrog

Material: Interviews.

Comment: Staff from Carmira Farm mentioned that this frog—which is unmistakable by its distinctive size, morphology, and behavior—appears during the first Tomopterna cf. cryptotis ( Boulenger, 1907)

Cryptic Sand Frog ( Fig. 11A–C )

Material: NB751 (25); NB752 (25); NB753 (25); NB754 (25); NB755 (25); NB762 (26).

Comment: The species was found breeding in early December, with males calling in loud choruses on banks of water bodies in BNP. Collected specimens had considerable coloration variation (see Fig. 11A–C ). Tomopterna cryptotis was originally described from Catequero (ca. 95 km south of BNP), and has been recorded between Calequero (= Catequero) and Cahama (ca. 75 km southwest of BNP) [ Poynton and Haacke 1993] among other localities in Angola ( Ruas 1996; Marques et al. 2018). This species is morphologically indistinguishable from T. tandyi ( Channing and Bogart 1996) , which was originally described from the Eastern Cape in South Africa and is known from Namibia, Botswana, and South Africa ( Channing 2001, du Preez and Carruthers 2009). Although T. tandyi is considered as being present in southwestern Angola ( Channing 2001; Channing and Rödel 2019), there are no literature records from the country, and its occurrence is presumably based on the morphology of similar frogs in Namibia (A. Channing, pers. comm.). However, Tomopterna species are highly cryptic, and difficult to distinguish based on morphology. Due to the fact that the BNP records are neartopotypical, these specimens are assigned to T. cryptotis , but the advertisemen calls heard in BNP resembled those of T. tandyi provided by du Preez and Carruthers (2019). Further integrative revision of these species in Angola is needed to confirm this assignment. Two other species from the same genus have recently been recorded from BNP ( Butler et al. 2019): T. tuberculosa and T. damarensis , which was recently re-assigned to Tompterna ahli ( Channing and Becker 2019) , which means that at least three species may occur sympatrically. Given the highly cryptic morphology of species within this genus ( Channing and Rödel 2019), and the continuing descriptions of new species ( Wilson and Channing 2019), all of these new records require revision.

Figures

Fig. 11. Tomopterna cf. cryptotis, BNP. (A–C) Three variations in coloration.