Astylosternus Werner, 1898

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Arthroleptidae > Subfamily: Astylosterninae > Genus: Astylosternus
13 species

Astylosternus Werner, 1898, Verh. Zool. Bot. Ges. Wien, 48: 200. Type species: Astylosternus diadematus Werner, 1898, by monotypy.

Gampsosteonyx Boulenger, 1900, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1900: 442. Type species: Gampsosteonyx batesi Boulenger, 1900, by monotypy. Synonymy by Parker, 1931, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Ser. 10, 7: 495.

Dilobates Boulenger, 1900, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1900: 444. Type species: Dilobates platycephalus Boulenger, 1900, by monotypy. Synonymy by Boulenger, 1903, Mem. R. Soc. Esp. Hist. Nat., 1: 61-64.

Trichobatrachus Boulenger, 1900, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1900: 443. Type species: Trichobatrachus robustus Boulenger, 1900, by monotypy. Synonymy by Noble, 1924, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 49: 319; Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 222.

Common Names

Night Frogs (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 37).

Hairy Frogs (Trichobatrachus (no longer recognized): Ananjeva, Borkin, Darevsky, and Orlov, 1988, Dict. Amph. Rept. Five Languages: 130; Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 38).

Distribution

Sierra Leone to Central African Republic and Mayombe Hills, Dem. Rep. Congo, with a gap in the region of Ghana; Osomba Hills (southeastern Nigeria) to Mayombe Hills (Dem. Rep. Congo) and Gabon through western and southwestern Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea; presumably in Cabinda enclave, Angola.

Comment

In Astylosternini of Frost, Grant, Faivovich, Bain, Haas, Haddad, de Sá, Channing, Wilkinson, Donnellan, Raxworthy, Campbell, Blotto, Moler, Drewes, Nussbaum, Lynch, Green, and Wheeler, 2006, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 297: 336. Perret, 1966, Zool. Jahrb., Jena, Abt. Syst., 93: 376-379, provided brief accounts of the Cameroon species. Amiet, 1978 "1977", Ann. Fac. Sci. Cameroun, 23–24: 99-227, reviewed the Cameroon species and defined species groups. Rödel, Barej, Hillers, Leaché, Kouamé, Ofori-Boateng, Assemian, Gonwouo, Nopper, Brede, Diaz, Fujita, Gil, Segniagbeto, Ernst, and Sandberger-Loua, 2012, Zootaxa, 3245: : 1-29, suggested that including West African species of Astylosternus into analysis (as was done in their Neighbor-Joining Tree) might demonstrate that Astylosternus is paraphyletic with respect to Trichobatrachus. Channing, Rödel, and Channing, 2012, Tadpoles of Africa: 89–94, reported on comparative tadpoloe morphology. Channing and Rödel, 2019, Field Guide Frogs & Other Amph. Afr.: 230–237, provided brief accounts, photographs, and range maps for the species. Trichobatrachus was removed from the synonymy of Astylosternus by Perret, 1966, Zool. Jahrb., Jena, Abt. Syst., 93: 381, where it had been placed by Noble, 1924, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 49: 319. Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 415, found Trichobatrachus robustus to rest within the clade of Astylosternus and on this basis return it to synonymy (p. 222).

Contained taxa (13 sp.):

Astylosternus batesi (Boulenger, 1900)
Astylosternus diadematus Werner, 1898
Astylosternus fallax Amiet, 1978
Astylosternus laticephalus Rödel, Hillers, Leaché, Kouamé, Ofori-Boateng, Diaz, and Sandberger, 2012
Astylosternus laurenti Amiet, 1978
Astylosternus montanus Amiet, 1978
Astylosternus nganhanus Amiet, 1978
Astylosternus occidentalis Parker, 1931
Astylosternus perreti Amiet, 1978
Astylosternus ranoides Amiet, 1978
Astylosternus rheophilus Amiet, 1978
Astylosternus robustus (Boulenger, 1900)
Astylosternus schioetzi Amiet, 1978

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