hear Fonozoo call

Description
A small (26–31 mm) frog from the dense forests in Cameroun. Colour bright green, dorsum with small white asperities. Hidden parts of limbs turquoise green. Males with a large gular flap and a reduced gular sac. Ventrum translucent so that the inner organs are visible.
Voice. – Apparently not gregarious during breeding. The males sit far from each other as do Leptopelis. The voice is a metallic “toc”, repeated 5–6 times.

Distribution and Habitat

Country distribution from AmphibiaWeb's database: Cameroon, Gabon

View distribution map in BerkeleyMapper.

A forest form from Cameroun, associated with running water.

Life History, Abundance, Activity, and Special Behaviors
Development. – The eggs, 40–50 in an egg mass with transparent jelly, are deposited about 1.5 metres above water near small streams. Apparently the female guards the eggs and assists the larvae in breaking free of the jelly. The jelly does not seem to disintegrate as in Hyperolius, and the tadpoles orientate themselves in it with the head up. A batch in captivity spent 3 weeks in the jelly apparently living on their yolk. The next stage is spent in water, where the tadpoles are plant-eaters. They have a tooth formula of 1,1+1/3 which is different from that of Hyperolius. The largest tadpoles are 29 mm.

Comments
This account was taken from "Treefrogs of Africa" by Arne Schiøtz with kind permission from Edition Chimaira publishers, Frankfurt am Main.

For a thorough phylogenetic analysis of the genus Hyperolius including (now subgenus Alexteroon) see Ernst et al 2021.

References

Ernst R, C Kehlmaier, NL Baptista, P Vaz Pinto, MF Branquima, M Dewynter, A Fouquet, A Ohler and A Schmitz (2021). "Filling the gaps: The mitogenomes of Afrotropical egg-guarding frogs based on historical type material and a re-assessment of the nomenclatural status of Alexteroon Perret, 1988 (Hyperoliidae)." Zoologischer Anzeiger, 293, 215–224. [link]

Schiøtz, A. (1999). Treefrogs of Africa. Edition Chimaira, Frankfurt am Main.

Species Account Citation: AmphibiaWeb 2023 Hyperolius obstetricans <https://amphibiaweb.org/species/473> University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. Accessed Apr 25, 2024.

Citation: AmphibiaWeb. 2024. <https://amphibiaweb.org> University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. Accessed 25 Apr 2024.

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