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

Acanthixalus spinosus (Buchholz and Peters, 1875)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Hyperoliidae > Subfamily: Acanthixalinae > Genus: Acanthixalus > Species: Acanthixalus spinosus

Hyperolius spinosus Buchholz and Peters in Peters, 1875, Monatsber. Preuss. Akad. Wiss. Berlin, 1875: 208. Syntype(s): ZMB 8359 (4 specimens), according to Bauer, Günther, and Klipfel, 1995, in Bauer et al. (eds.), Herpetol. Contr. W.C.H. Peters: 44, these now numbered ZMB 8359 and ZMB 59353–59355 (formerly part of ZMB 8359), according to Tillack, de Ruiter, and Rödel, 2021, Zoosyst. Evol., Berlin, 97: 435, who rejected the syntype status of 2 specimens in ZMG reported by Herrmann, 1989, Veröff. Naturhist. Mus. Schleusingen, 4: 13. Type locality: "Cameruns" (= Cameroon). Type locality discussed and corrected to "Douala", Region Littoral, Cameroon, by Frétey, Dubois, and Ohler, 2014, Alytes, 30: 11–28.

Megalixalus spinosus — Boulenger, 1882, Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus., Ed. 2: 130.

Megalixalus (Acanthixalus) spinosus — Laurent, 1944, Rev. Zool. Bot. Afr., 38: 110-138.

Acanthixalus spinosus — Laurent, 1950, Explor. Parc Natl. Albert, Miss. G.F. de Witte (1933–1935), 64: 14, by implication.

English Names

African Wart Frog (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 65).

Central African Spiny Frog (Channing and Rödel, 2019, Field Guide Frogs & Other Amph. Afr.: 130).

Distribution

Rainforests of southeastern Nigeria and southern Cameroon to northeastern Dem. Rep. Congo, and from Cameroon south through Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and Rep. Congo to extreme western Dem. Rep. Congo; possibly extending into southwestern Central African Republic and the Cabinda enclave of Angola; a seemingly isolated record south of the Congo River near the western boundary of Parc National de la Salonga Sud, on the Loko River, Bandulu Province, Dem. Rep. Congo.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Cameroon, Congo, Democratic Republic of the, Congo, Republic of the, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Nigeria

Likely/Controversially Present: Angola, Central African Republic

Comment

For new records see Largen and Dowsett-Lemaire, 1991, Tauraco Res. Rept., 4: 154. Schiøtz, 1963, Vidensk. Medd. Dansk Naturhist. Foren., 125: 61, provided a record for Nigeria. See account for Cameroon by Amiet, 2012, Rainettes Cameroun: 53-64.Channing, Rödel, and Channing, 2012, Tadpoles of Africa: 184, reported on comparative tadpole morphology. Baptista, Conradie, Vaz Pinto, and Branch, 2019, In Huntley, Russo, Lages, and Ferrand (eds.), Biodiversity in Angola: 258, doubted that this species will be found in Cabinda, Angola. Dewynter and Frétey, 2019, Cah. Fondation Biotope, 27: 20, summarized the literature for Gabon. Channing and Rödel, 2019, Field Guide Frogs & Other Amph. Afr.: 130–131, 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. Tillack, de Ruiter, and Rödel, 2021, Zoosyst. Evol., Berlin, 97: 435, discussed the collection and provenance of the primary ZMB types. Blackburn, Dérozier, Djaman, Greenbaum, and Jongsma, 2022, Herpetol. Notes, 15: 641–647, provided a record from south of the Congo River at near the western boundary of Parc National de la Salonga Sud, Bandulu Province, Dem. Rep. Congo, but noting that the identification is provisional. The authors also discussed the known localities for this species with reference to conservation priorities and provided a dot map for its distribution.

External links:

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For additional sources of general information from other websites search Google
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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 observation see iNaturalist
For access to available specimen data for this species, from over 350 scientific collections, go to Vertnet.