Description
A small toad-like Leptopelis (males 29-33 mm, females 37-41 mm) from the savanna of West Africa. Skin warty, legs short, toes with mere rudiment of web, discs on toes and fingers not broader than subarticular tubercle. Dorsum brown with darker pattern forming a triangle on the head with the apex pointing caudally, and an 'n' shaped pattern combined with a few mid-dorsal spots. Specimens examined from Nigeria are larger and with a smoother dorsum. This could indicate a transition towards the eastern fossorial species, L. bocagii.

Distribution and Habitat

Country distribution from AmphibiaWeb's database: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal

View distribution map in BerkeleyMapper.

Found on the very open, dry northern savannas. I collected my specimens on wet, partly flooded meadows where the males sat hidden in the low grass. It is a very inconspicuous frog, and the dry savanna in West Africa is pretty inaccessible in the rainy season, so the species is only known from a few scattered localities from Senegal as far east as Cameroun. Most probably widely distributed in the dry savanna in western Africa and possibly further east.

Life History, Abundance, Activity, and Special Behaviors
This is the only West African species to call from the ground, concealed in low grass or shallow water. The voice is a clack, deeper and more atonal than other West African Leptopelis. Sometimes a longer call is heard, consisting of a small number of clacks in rapid succession.

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

References

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

Species Account Citation: AmphibiaWeb 2008 Leptopelis bufonides <https://amphibiaweb.org/species/3642> University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. Accessed Nov 21, 2024.

Citation: AmphibiaWeb. 2024. <https://amphibiaweb.org> University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. Accessed 21 Nov 2024.

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