Sclerophrys Tschudi, 1838

Common Names

Typical Toads (Du Preez and Carruthers, 2017, Frogs S. Afr., Compl. Guide: 180).

Distribution

Subsaharan Africa; north of the Sahara in Western Saharan and Morocco, northern Algeria and Tunisia; southern Hadramaut of the Arabian Peninsula from south of Mecca (Saudi Arabia) to the region of Aden (southern Yemen) with isolated population to northeastern Oman and the adjacent United Arab Emirates. 

Comment

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: 221, recognized Amietophrynus for the former 20-chromosome "Bufo" (as well as the 22-chromosome "Bufo" pardalis group, which is phylogenetically imbedded within this clade); see Cunningham and Cherry, 2004, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 32: 671–85. See comment under Bufonidae for access to additional relevant literature. 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. Chaparro, Pramuk, and Gluesenkamp, 2007, Herpetologica, 63: 203–212, suggested that Amietophrynus is imbedded within a group of Asian and African genera (including Schismaderma, Duttaphrynus, and Ingerophrynus). Van Bocxlaer, Biju, Loader, and Bossuyt, 2009, BMC Evol. Biol., 9 (e131): 1–10, and Van Bocxlaer, Loader, Roelants, Biju, Menegon, and Bossuyt, 2010, Science, 327: 679–682, suggested that Amietophrynus is the sister taxon Mertensophryne. Mercurio, 2011, Amph. Malawi: 110–126, provided accounts and an identification key for the species of Malawi. Pyron and Wiens, 2011, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 61: 543–583, confirmed the monophyly of this taxon (although this is obscured by their explicit adoption of an out-dated and non-monophyletic taxonomy), its placement as the sister taxon of Capensibufo and provided a phylogenetic tree for their exemplar species. Channing, Rödel, and Channing, 2012, Tadpoles of Africa: 127–165, reported on comparative tadpole morphology. Fouquette and Dubois, 2014, Checklist N.A. Amph. Rept.: 290, considered Amietophrynus as 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. Du Preez and Carruthers, 2017, Frogs S. Afr., Compl. Guide: 180–199, provided brief accounts for the species of southern Africa, including polygon range maps, photographs, identification features, adult and larval morphology, habitats, and calls. Liedtke, Müller, Hafner, Penner, Gower, Mazuch, Rödel, and Loader, 2017, Proc. R. Soc. London, Ser. B, Biol. Sci., 284 (20162598): 6,  found this species (via a Bayesian analysis in BEAST) to be the sister taxon of Vandijkophrynus, rendering Sclerophrys nonmonophyletic, although they did not make the remedial taxonomic change. Channing and Rödel, 2019, Field Guide Frogs & Other Amph. Afr.: 56–75, provided brief accounts, photographs, and range maps for the species. Badjedjea, Masudi, Akaibe, and Gvoždík, 2022, Amph. Rept. Conserv., 16 (1: e301): 47, described in some detail a species complex in taxonomic free-fall, requiring a very serious attention and revision of the entire Sclerophrys camerunensis/Sclerophys gracilipes/Sclerophrys buchneri complex. Spawls, Mazuch, and Mohammad, 2023, Handb. Amph. Rept. NE Afr.: 34–46, provided an identification key and accounts addressing identification, natural history, conservation status, and range for species in northeastern Africa, including polygon maps.

Contained taxa (46 sp.):

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