Vandijkophrynus Frost, Grant, Faivovich, Bain, Haas, Haddad, de Sá, Channing, Wilkinson, Donnellan, Raxworthy, Campbell, Blotto, Moler, Drewes, Nussbaum, Lynch, Green, and Wheeler, 2006

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Bufonidae > Genus: Vandijkophrynus
6 species

Vandijkophrynus 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: 220. Type species: Bufo angusticeps Smith, 1848, by original designation.

Common Names

Van Dijk's Toads (Du Preez and Carruthers, 2009, Compl. Guide Frogs S. Afr.: 172).

Distribution

Extreme southern Namibia through Rep. South Africa, Lesotho, and Swaziland to Zimbabwe and Mozamibique.

Comment

Vandijkophrynus is the former Bufo angusticeps group of Tandy and Keith, 1972, in Blair (ed.), Evol. Genus Bufo: 158. 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. Van Bocxlaer, Biju, Loader, and Bossuyt, 2009, BMC Evol. Biol., 9 (e131): 1–10, did not address this taxon, but in a subsequent more densely-sampled analysis found Vandijkophrynus to be imbedded within an African clade composed of Capensibufo, Poyntonophrynus, and Mertensophryne. Van Bocxlaer, Loader, Roelants, Biju, Menegon, and Bossuyt, 2010, Science, 327: 679–682, Du Preez and Carruthers, 2009, Compl. Guide Frogs S. Afr.: 172–183, provided a key and accounts for the species of the southern Africa. Pyron and Wiens, 2011, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 61: 543–583, confirmed the monophyly of this taxon (although this is difficult to see because the authors explicitly adopted a non-monophyletic and out-dated taxonomy), provided a tree for their exemplar species, and suggested that it is the sister taxon of Poyntonophrynus + Mertensophryne. Channing, Rödel, and Channing, 2012, Tadpoles of Africa: 155–160, reported on comparative tadpole morphology. Fouquette and Dubois, 2014, Checklist N.A. Amph. Rept.: 290, considered Vandijkophrynus to be 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) in order 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: 200–211, provided brief accounts for the species, including polygon range maps, photographs, an identification key, adult and larval morphology, habitats, and calls. Channing and Rödel, 2019, Field Guide Frogs & Other Amph. Afr.: 76–79, provided brief accounts, photographs, and range maps for the species.

Contained taxa (6 sp.):

Vandijkophrynus amatolicus (Hewitt, 1925)
Vandijkophrynus angusticeps (Smith, 1848)
Vandijkophrynus gariepensis (Smith, 1848)
Vandijkophrynus inyangae (Poynton, 1963)
Vandijkophrynus nubicola (Hewitt, 1927)
Vandijkophrynus robinsoni (Branch and Braack, 1996)

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