Search tool	Example of search string in box	What that means to the database
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	Hyl*	Will find all uses of "Hyl . . ." anywhere in a record: e.g., Hylarana, Hyla, Hylidae, Hylinae, Hylaedactyla.
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	*Hyla	Will find all uses of ". . . hyla" anywhere in a record: e.g., Hyla, Hylidae, Plectrohyla, Ptychadena hylaea, Adenomera hylaedactyla
	Hyla	Will find all records that contain stand-alone uses of Hyla: e.g., Hyla, Hyla arenicolor
Strings of words without quotation marks	Lithobates pipiens	Interprets this as "Lithobates OR pipiens" so will find the union of all records that contain either "Lithobates" or "pipiens": e.g., Lithobates omiltemanus, Hylorana pipiens
Strings of word with quotation marks	"Lithobates pipiens"	Interprets this as "Lithobates AND pipiens" so will return all records that have the character string "Lithobates pipiens" anywhere within a record: e.g., all members of the Lithobates pipiens complex.
AND statement. Means that the results of the search must include both words held together by an AND	Lithobates AND pipiens	Same as "Lithobates pipiens"
OR statement. Means that the results of the search will all records that have either of the terms held together by an OR	Lithobates OR "Costa Rica"	Recovers all records that contain the word "Lithobates" or "Costa Rica": 402 records inasmuch as this will include all records for the entire amphibian fauna of Costa Rica
Combining Boolean operators within the Basic Search box (AND, OR, NOT, quotation marks)	Lithobates AND "Costa Rica" NOT forreri	Recovers only records that contain the word Lithobates AND "Costa Rica", but excludes any record that contains the word "forreri" in any part of the record: 9 records
Printable HELP file

Search tool	Example of search string in box	What that means to the database
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	Hyl*	Will find all uses of "Hyl . . ." anywhere in a record: e.g., Hylarana, Hyla, Hylidae, Hylinae, Hylaedactyla.
* = "wildcard". Allows a partial letter string to be entered and implies either no or various extension on this letter string	*Hyla	Will find all uses of ". . . hyla" anywhere in a record: e.g., Hyla, Hylidae, Plectrohyla, Ptychadena hylaea, Adenomera hylaedactyla
Single word	Hyla	Will find all records that contain stand-alone uses of Hyla: e.g., Hyla, Hyla arenicolor
Strings of words without quotation marks	Lithobates pipiens	Interprets this as "Lithobates OR pipiens" so will find the union of all records that contain either "Lithobates" or "pipiens": e.g., Lithobates omiltemanus, Hylorana pipiens
Strings of word with quotation marks	"Lithobates pipiens"	Interprets this as "Lithobates AND pipiens" so will return all records that have the character string "Lithobates pipiens" anywhere within a record: e.g., all members of the Lithobates pipiens complex.
AND statement. Means that the results of the search must include both words held together by an AND	Lithobates AND pipiens	Same as "Lithobates pipiens"
OR statement. Means that the results of the search will all records that have either of the terms held together by an OR	Lithobates OR "Costa Rica"	Recovers all records that contain the word "Lithobates" or "Costa Rica": 402 records inasmuch as this will include all records for the entire amphibian fauna of Costa Rica
Combining Boolean operators within the Basic Search box (AND, OR, NOT, quotation marks)	Lithobates AND "Costa Rica" NOT forreri	Recovers only records that contain the word Lithobates AND "Costa Rica", but excludes any record that contains the word "forreri" in any part of the record: 9 records
Printable HELP file

Mertensophryne anotis (Boulenger, 1907)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Bufonidae > Genus: Mertensophryne > Species: Mertensophryne anotis

Bufo anotis Boulenger, 1907, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Ser. 7, 20: 48. Syntypes: Including BMNH 1947.2.20.91–92 (formerly 1907.7.2.17–18), according to Grandison, 1985, in Frost (ed.), Amph. Species World: 76 (three specimens mentioned in original description–DRF). Type locality: "Chirinda Forest in S.E. Mashonaland", Zimbabwe.

Stephopaedes anotis — Channing, 1979 "1978", Herpetologica, 34: 394.

Mertensophryne (Stephopaedes) anotis — 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: 365.

Common Names

Chirinda Forest Toad (Broadley, 1973, J. Herpetol. Assoc. Afr., 10: 22; Broadley, 1978, J. Herpetol. Assoc. Afr., 19: 33; Ananjeva, Borkin, Darevsky, and Orlov, 1988, Dict. Amph. Rept. Five Languages: 44).

Boulengers Earless Toad (Lambiris, 1990 "1989", Monogr. Mus. Reg. Sci. Nat. Torino, 10: 66).

Mashonaland Toad (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 46).

Chirinda Toad (Channing, 2001, Amph. Cent. S. Afr.: 105; Du Preez and Carruthers, 2009, Compl. Guide Frogs S. Afr.: 194).

Distribution

Chirinda Forest in eastern Zimbabwe and Dombe Forest in adjacent Mozambique; isolated record in northeastern Mozambique Taratibu in Quirimbas National Park (see comment).

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Mozambique, Zimbabwe

Comment

Discussed by Poynton, 1964, Ann. Natal Mus., 17: 68, as Bufo anotis, and by Poynton and Broadley, 1988, Ann. Natal Mus., 29: 482–484, and Poynton, 1991, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., 152: 452–456. Considered (as Bufo anotis) to be in the Bufo taitanus complex by Tandy and Keith, 1972, in Blair (ed.), Evol. Genus Bufo: 156, suggesting that Bufo may be paraphyletic with respect to Stephopaedes. See accounts by Poynton and Clarke, 1999, Afr. J. Herpetol., 48: 8–9, and Channing, 2001, Amph. Cent. S. Afr.: 105–107. See photograph, map, description of geographic range and habitat, and conservation status (as Stephopaedes anotis) in Stuart, Hoffmann, Chanson, Cox, Berridge, Ramani, and Young, 2008, Threatened Amph. World: 205. Channing, Rödel, and Channing, 2012, Tadpoles of Africa: 143–144, reported on comparative tadpole morphology. Farooq, Liedtke, Bittencourt-Silva, Conradie, and Loader, 2015, Herpetol. Notes, 8: 305–307, provided a record from Taratibu, Quirimbas National Park, in northeastern Mozambique, which either suggests a much more wide-ranging species than previously thought or, as the authors suggest, this record may represent a widely disjunct population, possibly taxonomically distinct. Channing and Rödel, 2019, Field Guide Frogs & Other Amph. Afr.: 86–87, provided a brief account, photograph, and range map.

External links:

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For access to general information see Wikipedia
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For images search CalPhoto Images and Google Images
To search the NIH genetic sequence database, see GenBank
For additional information see AmphibiaWeb report
For information on conservation status and distribution see the IUCN Redlist
For information on distribution, habitat, and conservation see the Map of Life
For related information on conservation and images as well as observations see iNaturalist
For access to available specimen data for this species, from over 350 scientific collections, go to Vertnet.