Leptopelis millsoni (Boulenger, 1895)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Arthroleptidae > Subfamily: Leptopelinae > Genus: Leptopelis > Species: Leptopelis millsoni

Hylambates millsoni Boulenger, 1895 "1894", Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1894: 644. Syntypes: BMNH (2 specimens), by original designation, these bing BMNH 1894.7.30.11-12 (reregistered 1947.2.10.24-25), according to museum records. Type locality: "mouths of the Niger", Nigeria.

Leptopelis millsoniNoble, 1924, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 49: 244; Ahl, 1931, Das Tierreich, 55: 231.

Leptopelis guineensis Ahl, 1929, Sitzungsber. Ges. Naturforsch. Freunde Berlin, 1929: 200. Holotype: ZMB unnumbered according to the original publication; ZMB 20047, according to XXX. Type locality: "Makomo, Spanisch-Guinea". Synonymy by Perret, 1962, Rev. Zool. Bot. Afr., 65: 237; Perret, 1966, Zool. Jahrb., Jena, Abt. Syst., 93: 424.

Leptopelis (Leptopelis) millsoniLaurent, 1941, Rev. Zool. Bot. Afr., 35: 94.

English Names

Niger Forest Treefrog (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 69).

Millson's Tree Frog (Channing and Rödel, 2019, Field Guide Frogs & Other Amph. Afr.: 214).

Distribution

Rainforests of southwestern Nigeria and Gabon to eastern Dem. Rep. Congo and northwestern Angola; presumably in southwestern Central African Republic. See comment. 

Geographic Occurrence

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

Comment

Removed from the synonymy of Leptopelis rufus by Ahl, 1931, Das Tierreich, 55: 231, where it had been placed by Noble, 1924, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 49: 242. See account by Laurent, 1973, Ann. Mus. R. Afr. Cent., Tervuren, Ser. Octavo, Sci. Zool., 202: 56-59. Possibly conspecific with Leptopelis macrotis according to Schiøtz, 1999, Treefrogs Afr.: 258. Gabon record by Lötters, Gossmann, Obame, and Böhme, 2001, Herpetofauna, Weinstadt, 23: 32. Frétey and Blanc, 2002 "2001", Bull. Soc. Zool. France, 126: 383, reported this species from Gabon. Schiøtz, 1963, Vidensk. Medd. Dansk Naturhist. Foren., 125: 87, provided records for Nigeria. See account for Cameroon by Amiet, 2012, Rainettes Cameroun: 506-512. Schiøtz, 1999, Treefrogs Afr.: 257–258, provided an account and map. Rödel, Emmrich, Penner, Schmitz, and Barej, 2014, Zoosyst. Evol., 90: 21–31, discussed the taxonomic status of this taxon and noted that currently there is a considerable issue as to application of names due to the uncertainty of what clade actually occurs at the type locality of Leptopelis millsoni. These authors suggested maintaining the nomenclatural status quo until appropriate molecular and/or acoustic data could be gathered. Barej, Pfalzgraff, Hirschfeld, Liedtke, Penner, Gonwouo, Dahmen, Grözinger, Schmitz, and Rödel, 2015, Amph. Rept. Conserv., 9(2, Spec. Section): 56–84, reported on larval morphology. Jongsma, Tobi, Dixon-MacCallum, Bamba-Kaya, Yoga, Mbega, Mve Beh, Emrich, and Blackburn, 2017, Amph. Rept. Conserv., 11 (1: e144): 8, provided a record for southeastern Gabon and briefly discussed habitat and range. Dewynter, Chirio, Melki, Cordier, and Frétey, 2017, Cah. Fondation Biotope, 11: 16, provided a brief account and photographs of this species from the Mount Koumouna-Bouali area of Gabon. Dewynter, Frétey, Jongsma, Bamba-Kaya, and Pauwels, 2018, Cah. Fondation Biotope, 18: 32, provided a brief account and photographs from the Monts Birougou area of Gabon. Mali, Banda, Chifundera, Badjedjea, Sebe, Lokasola, Ewango, Tungaluna, and Akaibe, 2019, Am. J. Zool., 2: 38–43, reported the species from the Okapi Wildlife Reserve, northeastern Dem. Rep. Congo. Dewynter and Frétey, 2019, Cah. Fondation Biotope, 27: 14, summarized the literature for Gabon, noted (following Rödel et al., 2014) that this nominal species is composed of at least two lineage, and provided photographs (p. 50). Channing and Rödel, 2019, Field Guide Frogs & Other Amph. Afr.: 214–215, 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 the species to occur in Uigé Province of northwestern Angola. Jaynes, Myers, Gvoždík, Blackburn, Portik, Greenbaum, Jongsma, Rödel, Badjedjea, Bamba-Kaya, Baptista, Akuboy, Ernst, Kouete, Kasumba, Masudi, McLaughlin, Nneji, Onadeko, Penner, Vaz Pinto, Stuart, Tobi, Zassi-Boulou, Leaché, Fujita, and Bell, 2022, Mol. Ecol., 31: 3979–3998, reported on molecular and morphological systematics, biogeography, and advertisement call.  

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