Sclerophrys pentoni (Anderson, 1893)

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

Bufo pentoni Anderson, 1893, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Ser. 6, 12: 440. Syntypes: BMNH 1947.2.21.90–92 (formerly 97.10.28.661–63) according to Grandison, 1985, in Frost (ed.), Amph. Species World: 56. Type locality: "Shaata Gardens, situated about one mile outside Suakin", eastern Sudan.

Bufo pentoni pentoni — Balletto and Cherchi, 1973, Boll. Mus. Ist. Biol. Univ. Genova, 41: 105–119, by fiat.

"Bufo" pentoni — 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. Excluded from Bufo and unassigned to genus.

Amietophrynus pentoni — Portik and Papenfuss, 2015, BMC Evol. Biol., 15 (152): 1. 

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

Common Names

Penton's Toad (Flower, 1933, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1933: 839; Barnett, Emms, and Santoni, 2001, Herpetol. Bull., London, 77: 7).

Shaata Gardens Toad (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 43).

Distribution

South of the Sahara in dry savanna and semi-desert from Gambia, Senegal, and southern Mauritania eastward to the Red Sea coast of Sudan and extreme northern South Sudan, Eritrea and Djibouti; in the Sahara, at the Trarza region (Mauritania) and Air mountains (Niger); expected in northern Central African Republic, Chad, northern Ivory Coast, and extreme northern Ethiopia.  

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Djibouti, Eritrea, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, South Sudan, Sudan, Togo

Likely/Controversially Present: Central African Republic, Chad, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast

Comment

In the Bufo pentoni group of Tandy and Keith, 1972, in Blair (ed.), Evol. Genus Bufo: 160. See Balletto and Cherchi, 1973, Boll. Mus. Ist. Biol. Univ. Genova, 41: 105–119, for distribution and analysis of characters. Records of this species from the Arabian Peninsula refer to Bufo tihamicus. See account by Perret, 1966, Zool. Jahrb., Jena, Abt. Syst., 93: 317–318. See Salvador, 1996, Smithson. Herpetol. Inform. Serv., 109, for account of North African population. Rödel, 2000, Herpetofauna W. Afr., 1: 62–64, provided an account. Barnett, Emms, and Santoni, 2001, Herpetol. Bull., London, 77: 7, provided the Gambia record. Padial and De la Riva, 2004, Rev. Esp. Herpetol., 18: 91, provided a record from Mauritania. 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, suggested that this species is not a member of the monophyletic taxon Bufo (the former Bufo bufo group), but could not allocate this species to any of the other genera either, instead leaving this species in a non-taxon "Bufo". Wanger, 2005, Salamandra, 41: 27–33, provided Gambia records. Nago, Grell, Sinsin, and Rödel, 2006, Salamandra, 42: 93–108, provided records for Benin. Mauritania, and Niger. Emms, Jambang, Bah, Mankali, Rödel, and Barnett, 2005, Herpetol. Bull., London, 94: 6–16, provided records for Gambia. See account (as Bufo pentoni), photograph, and map for Eritrea by Largen and Spawls, 2010, Amph. Rept. Ethiopia Eritrea: 72–73. Channing, Rödel, and Channing, 2012, Tadpoles of Africa: 140, commented on tadpole morphology. Padial, Crochet, Géniez, and Brito, 2013, Basic & Appl. Herpetol., 27: 11–22, discussed systematics, distribution, and conservation status in Mauritania. Sow, Gonçalves, Sousa, Martínez-Freiría, Santarém, Velo-Antón, Dieng, Campos, Diagne, Boratyński, and Brito, 2017, Basic & Appl. Herpetol., 31: 101–116, reported the species from extreme southeastern Mauritania. See detailed account for Mauritania by Escoriza and Ben Hassine, 2019, Amph. N. Afr.: 239–243. Channing and Rödel, 2019, Field Guide Frogs & Other Amph. Afr.: 58–59, provided a brief account, photograph, and range map. Ayoro, Segniagbeto, Hema, Penner, Oueda, Dubois, Rödel, Kabré, and Ohler, 2020, Zoosystema, 42: 547–582, discussed records, identification, and habitat in Burkina Faso. Records from Yemen are now allocated to Sclerophrys tihamica. Spawls, Mazuch, and Mohammad, 2023, Handb. Amph. Rept. NE Afr.: 43, provided an account addressing identification, natural history, conservation status, and range in northeastern Africa, including a polygon map. 

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