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

Sclerophrys funerea (Barboza du Bocage, 1866)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Bufonidae > Genus: Sclerophrys > Species: Sclerophrys funerea

Bufo funereus Barboza du Bocage, 1866, J. Sci. Math. Phys. Nat., Lisboa, 1 (1): 56. Nomen nudum.

Bufo funereus Barboza du Bocage, 1866, J. Sci. Math. Phys. Nat., Lisboa, 1 (1): 77. Holotype: MBL T.5-363, according to Perret, 1976, Arq. Mus. Bocage, Ser. 2, 6: 15-34; presumably destroyed in 1978 fire. Type locality: "Duque de Bragança [= Calandula]", Angola.

Bufo benguelensis Boulenger, 1882, Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus., Ed. 2: 299. Syntypes: BMNH (3 specimens), by original designation and including animal figured on pl. 19, fig. 3, in the original publication; including BMNH 1853.2.21.3 and 1872.2.15.3 according to museum records. Type localities: "Benguela" Angola, "Fernando Po" (= Bioko, Equatorial Guinea), and "W. Africa". Synonymy by Barboza du Bocage, 1895, Herpetol. Angola Congo: 186; Nieden, 1923, Das Tierreich, 46: 102; Noble, 1924, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 49: 172.

Bufo benguellensis — Barboza du Bocage, 1895, Herpetol. Angola Congo: 186. Incorrect subsequent spelling.

Bufo funereus funereus — Schmidt and Inger, 1959, Explor. Parc Natl. Upemba, Miss. G.F. de Witte, 56: 17, by implication; Laurent, 1961, Rev. Zool. Bot. Afr., 63: 270.

Bufo funereus berghei — Hulselmans, 1970, Rev. Zool. Bot. Afr., 81: 152; Tandy and Keith, 1972, in Blair (ed.), Evol. Genus Bufo: 158.

Amietophrynus funereus — 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: 363.

Sclerophrys funerea — Ohler and Dubois, 2016, PeerJ, 4(e1553): 9.

English Names

Angola Toad (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 41).

Somber Toad (Channing, 2001, Amph. Cent. S. Afr.: 69; Channing and Howell, 2006, Amph. E. Afr.: 73).

Angolan Toad (Marques, Ceríaco, Blackburn, and Bauer, 2018, Proc. California Acad. Sci., Ser. 4, 65 (Suppl. II): 70).

Distribution

West-central Africa from Equatorial Guinea and Gabon to Uganda, southward to throughout the Congo Basin Dem. Rep. Congo (Sangha Province) and into northern Angola in rainforest. See comment.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Angola, Congo, Democratic Republic of the, Congo, Republic of the, Uganda

Likely/Controversially Present: Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon

Comment

In the Bufo funereus group of Tandy and Keith, 1972, in Blair (ed.), Evol. Genus Bufo: 158. See comment under Bufo fuliginatus. See brief accounts in Laurent, 1961, Rev. Zool. Bot. Afr., 63: 262-276, Laurent, 1972, Explor. Parc Natl. Virunga, Ser. 2, 22: 22-24, and Channing, 2001, Amph. Cent. S. Afr.: 69. Noble, 1924, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 49: 172, noted that "Bufo benguelensis" of Andersson, 1905, Ark. Zool., 2(20): 26, was referable to Bufo regularis. Records from Benin, Nigeria, and Cameroon need to be reevaulated. Jackson and Blackburn, 2007, Salamandra, 43: 149-164, provided a record for Nouabale-Ndoki National Park, Rep. Congo. Channing, Rödel, and Channing, 2012, Tadpoles of Africa: 129–130, reported on comparative tadpole morphology. Marques, Ceríaco, Blackburn, and Bauer, 2018, Proc. California Acad. Sci., Ser. 4, 65 (Suppl. II): 70–71, provided a map for Angola and provided a brief account. Dewynter and Frétey, 2019, Cah. Fondation Biotope, 27: 17, summarized the literature for Gabon. Channing and Rödel, 2019, Field Guide Frogs & Other Amph. Afr.: 72–73, provided a brief account, photograph, and range map. See brief account, range map for Equatorial Guinea in Sánchez-Vialas, Calvo-Revuelta, Castroviejo-Fisher, and De la Riva, 2020, Proc. California Acad. Sci., Ser. 4, 66: 137–230. Badjedjea, Masudi, Akaibe, and Gvoždík, 2022, Amph. Rept. Conserv., 16 (1: e301): 47, commented on a population from the Kokolopori Bonobo Nature Reserve, Tshuapa Province, Dem. Rep. Congo; these authors also doubted the identification of records from Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and, in short, described a taxonomic complex in free-fall, requiring a very serious revision of the entire Sclerophrys camerunensis/Sclerophys gracilipes/Sclerophrys buchneri complex. Dehling and Sinsch, 2023, Diversity, 15 (512): 1–81, did not include this species in their list of Rwandan amphibians; see comment under Sclerophrys berghei.

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For information on distribution, habitat, and conservation see the Map of Life
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For access to available specimen data for this species, from over 350 scientific collections, go to Vertnet.