Astylosternus robustus (Boulenger, 1900)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Arthroleptidae > Subfamily: Astylosterninae > Genus: Astylosternus > Species: Astylosternus robustus

Trichobatrachus robustus Boulenger, 1900, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1900: 443. Syntypes: BMNH (2 specimens), by original designation; according to museum records these being BMNH 1900.2.17.59-60 (reregisterd 1947.2.30.85-86). Type locality: "Benito River", elsewhere in the original publication suggested to be "Benito River, north of the Gaboon River between 20 and 30 miles inland from the coast, Gaboon", Equatorial Guinea.

Astylosternus robustus — Noble, 1924, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 49: 319; Cochran, 1961, Living Amph. World: 159; Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 222. 

Common Names

Hairy Frog (Cochran, 1961, Living Amph. World: 159; 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

Osomba Hills (southeastern Nigeria) to Mayombe Hills (Dem. Rep. Congo) and Gabon through western and southwestern Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea; presumably in western Rep. Congo and Cabinda enclave, Angola. A population noted in the Serra do Uige of northern Angola may be a distinct species (see comment). 

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Angola, Cameroon, Congo, Democratic Republic of the, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Nigeria

Likely/Controversially Present: Congo, Republic of the

Comment

See brief account in Perret, 1966, Zool. Jahrb., Jena, Abt. Syst., 93: 381–382. Gabon record by Lötters, Gossmann, Obame, and Böhme, 2001, Herpetofauna, Weinstadt, 23: 22. Lasso, Rial, Castroviejo, and De la Riva, 2002, Graellsia, 58: 21–34, provided notes on ecological distribution in Equatorial Guinea. Schiøtz, 1963, Vidensk. Medd. Dansk Naturhist. Foren., 125: 48-49, provided records for Nigeria. Channing, Rödel, and Channing, 2012, Tadpoles of Africa: 126–127, reported on comparative tadpole morphology. Ernst, Nienguesso, Lautenschläger, Barej, Schmitz, and Hölting, 2014, Zootaxa, 3779: 297-300, reported a population (likely a new species) from the Serra do Pingano, Uíge province, northern Angola. Dewynter, Chirio, Melki, Cordier, and Frétey, 2017, Cah. Fondation Biotope, 11: 28, provided a brief account and photographs of the tadpole from the Mount Koumouna-Bouali area of Gabon. Dewynter, Frétey, Jongsma, Bamba-Kaya, and Pauwels, 2018, Cah. Fondation Biotope, 18: 41, provided a brief account and photographs from the Monts Birougou area of Gabon. Marques, Ceríaco, Blackburn, and Bauer, 2018, Proc. California Acad. Sci., Ser. 4, 65 (Suppl. II): 127–128, provided a map and brief account for Angola. Dewynter and Frétey, 2019, Cah. Fondation Biotope, 27: 11, summarized the literature for Gabon and provided photographs (p. 47). Channing and Rödel, 2019, Field Guide Frogs & Other Amph. Afr.: 238–239, provided a brief account, photograph, and range map. See brief account, range map, and photographs for Equatorial Guinea in Sánchez-Vialas, Calvo-Revuelta, Castroviejo-Fisher, and De la Riva, 2020, Proc. California Acad. Sci., Ser. 4, 66: 137–230. Ernst, Lautenschläger, Branquima, and Hölting, 2020, Zoosyst. Evol., 96: 249, noted a likely cryptic species to occur in Uigé Province of northwestern Angola. 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).

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