Light shines through the spindrift – Phylogeny of African torrent frogs (Amphibia, Anura, Petropedetidae)

Life in the spray zone – overlooked diversity in West African torrent-frogs (Anura, Odontobatrachidae, Odontobatrachus)

“…A list of samples gathered in addition to Barej et al (2015) and respective GenBank numbers are given in Appendix 2: Table B. For laboratory procedures see Barej et al (2014a).…”

“…The Odontobatrachus species all exhibit a torrent-frog'-habitus as likewise independently developed in various non-related taxa (e.g. Petropedetidae: Petropedetes, Arthroleptides, Barej et al 2010Barej et al , 2014aHylodidae: Hylodes, Haddad and Giaretta 1999;Heleophrynidae: Heleophryne, Hadromophryne, Minter et al 2004;Ranidae: Staurois, Matsui et al 2007). Adults usually possess a rather flattened body shape and head, allowing them to hide between crevices and under rocks.…”

“…These special mouthparts are only reduced at the very last stages of metamorphosis, which is typical for rheophilous larvae (Lamotte and Zuber-Vogeli 1954;Guibé and Lamotte 1958;Channing et al 2012). The adult frogs are characterised by a medium to large body length (females reaching > 60 mm snout-urostyle length), the possession of dilated, heart-shaped toe tips, a rough dorsal skin texture with glandular ridges, mandibular fangs in both sexes and femoral glands in males (Boulenger 1905;Barej et al 2014a). These frogs have a patchy distribution within the Upper Guinea forest region, roughly ranging from western Guinea through Sierra Leone and Liberia to western Côte d'Ivoire (Boulenger 1905;Guibé and Lamotte 1958;Böhme 1994b;Rödel 2003;Rödel et al 2004a;Hillers and Rödel 2007;Hillers et al 2008a).…”

The taxonomic status of Petropedetes newtonii (Amphibia, Anura, Petropedetidae)

“…The phylogenetic relationships of the genus Petropedetes have been recently revised by Barej et al (2014), revealing that the species diversity of the genus is underestimated and also that the validity of the taxon P. newtonii (Bocage, 1895), placed in the synonymy of P. johnstoni by Barej et al (2010), remains uncertain.…”

“…Consequently, two species were considered to occur in Bioko, one of them with webbed toes ( P. cameronensis ) and the other one with non-webbed toes ( P. johnstoni ) (Barej et al 2010). Specimens of non-webbed Petropedetes from Bioko studied using molecular data by Barej et al (2014) were nested with continental P. vulpiae , but forming a clade, together with a few samples from nearby localities in Cameroon, sister to all other samples of P. vulpiae (including topotypic specimens). Barej et al (2010, 2014) indicated that the original description of P. newtonii (Bocage, 1895a) does not fit with the morphological characters of P. vulpiae and, consequently, they kept them as separate taxa ( P. newtonii in the synonymy of P. johnstoni ).…”