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

Afrixalus dorsalis (Peters, 1875)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Hyperoliidae > Subfamily: Hyperoliinae > Genus: Afrixalus > Species: Afrixalus dorsalis

Hyperolius dorsalis Peters, 1875, Monatsber. Preuss. Akad. Wiss. Berlin, 1875: 206. Syntypes: Including ZMB 4488 according to Bauer, Günther, and Klipfel, 1995, in Bauer et al. (eds.), Herpetol. Contr. W.C.H. Peters: 44. Type locality: "Boutry [mouth of River Butre, Ghana]" and "Victoria in einem Wassertümpel", Cameroon; restricted to "Boutry" by Mertens, 1938, Abh. Senckenb. Naturforsch. Ges., 442: 24.

Megalixalus dorsalis — Parker, 1931 "1930", Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1930: 900; Ahl, 1931, Das Tierreich, 55: 439.

Afrixalus dorsalis — Guibé, 1948, Bull. Mus. Natl. Hist. Nat. Paris, Ser. 2, 20: 500, by implication.

Afrixalus dorsalis dorsalis — Laurent, 1951, Ann. Soc. R. Zool. Belg., 82: 24.

Afrixalus dorsalis regularis Laurent, 1951, Ann. Soc. R. Zool. Belg., 82: 25. Holotype: MNHNP 96.575, by original designation. Type locality: "Lambarené s/Ogoué, Gabon". Distinctiveness from Afrixalus dorsalis dorsalis rejected by Rödel, 2000, Herpetofauna W. Afr., 1: 246.

Afrixalus dorsalis laciniosus Perret, 1960, Rev. Zool. Bot. Afr., 61: 369. Holotype: MHNG 1035.39 according to Schätti, Perret, and Mariaux, 2002, Cat. Comm. Types Amph. Rept. Mus. Hist. Nat. Geneve, Vers. 4.0 (Jan. 2002): 4. Type locality: "Douala, Cameroun".

English Names

Cameroon Banana Frog (Ananjeva, Borkin, Darevsky, and Orlov, 1988, Dict. Amph. Rept. Five Languages: 70).

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

Striped Spiny Reed Frog (Channing, 2001, Amph. Cent. S. Afr.: 136).

Distribution

Brushland habitats in Ginea and eastern Sierra Leone through coastal Cameroon to extreme northern coastal Angola; apparently absent from Benin.

Comment

See accounts by Inger, 1968, Explor. Parc Natl. Garamba, Miss. H. de Saeger, 52: 131, Schiøtz, 1999, Treefrogs Afr.: 47–48, and Amiet, 2009, Rev. Suisse Zool., 116: 65–68. See comment under Afrixalus fulvovittautus. Rödel, 2000, Herpetofauna W. Afr., 1: 242–246, provided an account and discussed the three subspecies. See also account by Channing, 2001, Amph. Cent. S. Afr.: 136–137. Frétey and Blanc, 2002 "2001", Bull. Soc. Zool. France, 126: 382, reported this species from Gabon. Schiøtz, 1963, Vidensk. Medd. Dansk Naturhist. Foren., 125: 51–54, provided records for Nigeria and discussed the taxon. Segniagbeto, Bowessidjaou, Dubois, and Ohler, 2007, Alytes, 24: 76, commented on the presence of this species in Togo. See account by Amiet, 2009, Rev. Suisse Zool., 116: 53–92. See account for Cameroon by Amiet, 2012, Rainettes Cameroun: 69-75. Channing, Rödel, and Channing, 2012, Tadpoles of Africa: 187, reported on comparative tadpole morphology. Jongsma, Tobi, Dixon-MacCallum, Bamba-Kaya, Yoga, Mbega, Mve Beh, Emrich, and Blackburn, 2017, Amph. Rept. Conserv., 11 (1: e144): 10, provided a record for southeastern Gabon and briefly discussed habitat and range. Marques, Ceríaco, Blackburn, and Bauer, 2018, Proc. California Acad. Sci., Ser. 4, 65 (Suppl. II): 85, provided a map for Angola and a brief account, noting the so-far unaddressed taxonomic uncertainties surrounding the nominal species. Dewynter and Frétey, 2019, Cah. Fondation Biotope, 27: 21, summarized the literature for Gabon and provided photographs (p. 55). Rödel and Glos, 2019, Zoosyst. Evol., 95: 21, reported this species from the Foya Proposed Protected Area in western Liberia. Channing and Rödel, 2019, Field Guide Frogs & Other Amph. Afr.: 152–153, provided a brief account, photograph, and range map. Portik, Bell, Blackburn, Bauer, Barratt, Branch, Burger, Channing, Colston, Conradie, Dehling, Drewes, Ernst, Greenbaum, Gvoždík, Harvey, Hillers, Hirschfeld, Jongsma, Kielgast, Kouete, Lawson, Leaché, Loader, Lötters, van der Meijden, Menegon, Müller, Nagy, Ofori-Boateng, Ohler, Papenfuss, Rößler, Sinsch, Rödel, Veith, Vindum, Zassi-Boulou, and McGuire, 2019, Syst. Biol., 68: 859–875, implied that this nominal species is a complex. 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.

External links:

Please note: these links will take you to external websites not affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History. We are not responsible for their content.

For additional sources of information from other sites search Google
For images search CalPhoto Images and Google Images
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 related information on conservation and images as well as observation see iNaturalist; for a quick link to their maps see iNaturalist KML
For access to available specimen data for this species, from over 350 scientific collections, go to Vertnet.