Capensibufo Grandison, 1980

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Bufonidae > Genus: Capensibufo
5 species

Capensibufo Grandison, 1980, Bull. Brit. Mus. (Nat. Hist.), Zool., 39: 294. Type species: Bufo tradouwi Hewitt, 1926, by original designation.

Common Names

Cape Toads (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 44).

Mountain Toadlets (Du Preez and Carruthers, 2009, Compl. Guide Frogs S. Afr.: 184).

Distribution

Breede River to north of Knysna, Western Cape Province, Rep. South Africa.

Comment

See Grandison, 1981, Monit. Zool. Ital., N.S., Suppl., 15: 187–215, and Grandison, 1980, Bull. Brit. Mus. (Nat. Hist.), Zool., 39: 293–298, for a discussion of the phylogenetic relationships of this genus. 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: 129, suggested on the basis of DNA sequence evidence that Capensibufo is monophyletic and the sister taxon of an African group composed of Poytonophrynus, Mertensophryne, and Amietophrynus. Tandy and Keith, 1972, in Blair (ed.), Evol. Genus Bufo: 158, suggested that the two species in this taxon belonged to different species groups of Bufo (Bufo rosei in the Bufo rosei group related to the Bufo taitanus complex, and Bufo tradouwi in the Bufo angusticeps group). Graybeal and Cannatella, 1995, Herpetologica, 51: 121, suggested that additional support was needed to substantiated the monophyly of this taxon. See Branch, 1990, J. Herpetol. Assoc. Afr., 37: 20. Smith and Chiszar, 2006, Herpetol. Conserv. Biol., 1: 6–8, implied that this taxon should be considered a subgenus of Bufo; see comment under Bufonidae. Du Preez and Carruthers, 2009, Compl. Guide Frogs S. Afr.: 184–189, provided a key and species accounts for the species. Van Bocxlaer, Loader, Roelants, Biju, Menegon, and Bossuyt, 2010, Science, 327: 679–682, found Capensibufo to be phylogenetically isolated but still possibly the sister taxon of Vandijkophrynus, but more definitely in a group composed to Vandijkophrynus, Mertensophryne, and Poytonophrynus. Tolley, De Villiers, Cherry, and Measey, 2010, Biol. J. Linn. Soc., 100: 822–834, reported on genetic variation among populations and suggested that the then two-species taxonomy was inadequate to describe the lineage diversity. Pyron and Wiens, 2011, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 61: 543–583, confirmed the monophyly of this taxon and its placement as the sister taxon of Amietophrynus. Fouquette and Dubois, 2014, Checklist N.A. Amph. Rept.: 290, considered Capensibufo as a subgenus of Bufo, cherry-picking their citation to literature (excluding any reference to Van Bocxlaer, Biju, Loader, and Bossuyt, 2009, BMC Evol. Biol., 9 (e131): 1–10, Van Bocxlaer, Loader, Roelants, Biju, Menegon, and Bossuyt, 2010, Science, 327: 679–682, or Pyron and Wiens, 2011, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 61: 543–583, which provided results not congruent with the story that Fouquette and Dubois wanted to tell) to avoid recognizing that treating this genus as a subgenus of Bufo also requires under current understanding of phylogeny all Old-World bufonids, such as Sabahphrynus, Nectophryne, and Ansonia to be treated as subgenera of Bufo as well. Channing and Rödel, 2019, Field Guide Frogs & Other Amph. Afr.: 84–87, provided brief accounts, photographs, and range maps for the species. 

Contained taxa (5 sp.):

Capensibufo deceptus Channing, Measey, De Villiers, Turner, and Tolley, 2017
Capensibufo magistratus Channing, Measey, De Villiers, Turner, and Tolley, 2017
Capensibufo rosei (Hewitt, 1926)
Capensibufo selenophos Channing, Measey, De Villiers, Turner, and Tolley, 2017
Capensibufo tradouwi (Hewitt, 1926)

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