Description
A small (males up to 44 mm), South African Kassina-like frog, dorsum grey with dark stripes which are normally divided longitudinally. Ventrum coarsely granular. Hands and feet bright yellow. No discs on hands and feet.
Males may call from elevated positions in the grass, from exposed sites on the banks or sometimes from well-concealed partly submerged positions among surface weed several metres out from the edge. The voice is a coarse, loud rattle, which lasts half a second. The sound has been compared with the creak of a cork being removed from a bottle. About one call every 3-5 seconds. The voice is quite different from that of the genus Kassina, consisting of a small number of elements with an indistinct frequency-intensity maximum of 2000 cps.

Distribution and Habitat

Country distribution from AmphibiaWeb's database: Lesotho, South Africa, Swaziland

View distribution map in BerkeleyMapper.

Distributed in both the temperate and subtropical regions of eastern and south-eastern South Africa.

Life History, Abundance, Activity, and Special Behaviors
The eggs are laid singly attached to submerged vegetation. The tadpole has high fins and a very distinct light stripe along the axis of the tail. They are up to 58 mm. Tooth formula 1/3 with the lowest row being very short.

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 Semnodactylus wealii: Weale's running frog <https://amphibiaweb.org/species/3707> University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. Accessed Nov 27, 2024.

Citation: AmphibiaWeb. 2024. <https://amphibiaweb.org> University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. Accessed 27 Nov 2024.

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