Afrixalus vittiger (Peters, 1876)

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

Hyperolius vittiger Peters, 1876, Monatsber. Preuss. Akad. Wiss. Berlin, 1876: 122. Holotype: ZMB 8669, by original designation. Type locality: "Liberia".

Megalixalus vittiger — Boulenger, 1911, Ann. Mus. Civ. Stor. Nat. Genova, Ser. 3, 5: 169.

Afrixalus vittiger — Perret, 1976, Bull. Soc. Neuchatel. Sci. Nat., 99: 22; Pickersgill, 2007, Afr. J. Herpetol., 56: 23.

English Names

Savannah Banana Frog (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 66).

Spiny Reed Frog (Emms, Jambang, Bah, Mankali, Rödel, and Barnett, 2005, Herpetol. Bull., London, 94: 13).

Pyjama Spiny Reed Frog ( Channing and Rödel, 2019, Field Guide Frogs & Other Amph. Afr.: 154). 

Distribution

West African savannas from Gambia and Senegal through southern Mali and Burkina Faso to the coast and east to western Nigeria and provisionally to northern Cameroon (see comment).

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Benin, Burkina Faso, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo

Comment

Afrixalus vittger Peters, 1876, had been placed in synonym with Afrixalus fulvovittatus by Boulenger, 1882, Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus., Ed. 2: 1212, Loveridge, 1929, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 151, Perret, 1966, Zool. Jahrb., Jena, Abt. Syst., 93: 439; and Schiøtz, 1999, Treefrogs Afr.: 59; recognized as distinct by by Perret, 1976, Bull. Soc. Neuchatel. Sci. Nat., 99: 22, and Rödel, 2000, Herpetofauna W. Afr., 1: 232-238. See comments by Rödel and Bangoura, 2004, Tropical Zool., 17: 214, regarding distinctiveness of Afrixalus vittiger and Afrixalus fulvovittatus in Guinea. Wanger, 2005, Salamandra, 41: 27-33, provided Gambia records, as did Emms, Jambang, Bah, Mankali, Rödel, and Barnett, 2005, Herpetol. Bull., London, 94: 6-16. Segniagbeto, Bowessidjaou, Dubois, and Ohler, 2007, Alytes, 24: 76, commented on the presence of this species in Togo. See comments by Rödel, Gil, Agyei, Leaché, Diaz, Fujita, and Ernst, 2005, Salamandra, 41: 117-118. Pickersgill, 2007, Afr. J. Herpetol., 56: 23-37, discussed and redelimited this species compared with Afrixalus fulvovittatus and relegated a number of names implicitly to Afrixalus "quadrivittatus" which he considered to be a conglomeration of cryptic or poorly understood species. Amiet, 2009, Rev. Suisse Zool., 116: 53-92, reported specimens from northern Cameroon as Afrixalus "vittiger". See account for Cameroon by Amiet, 2012, Rainettes Cameroun: 102-105. Channing, Rödel, and Channing, 2012, Tadpoles of Africa: 194, reported on comparative tadpole morphology. Channing and Rödel, 2019, Field Guide Frogs & Other Amph. Afr.: 154–155, 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, suggested that this nominal species is a complex. Ayoro, Segniagbeto, Hema, Penner, Oueda, Dubois, Rödel, Kabré, and Ohler, 2020, Zoosystema, 42: 547–582, discussed records, identification, and habitat in Burkina Faso. Tillack, de Ruiter, and Rödel, 2021, Zoosyst. Evol., Berlin, 97: 438, briefly discussed the holotype and early literature of the species. Nečas, Kielgast, Nagy, Chifundera, and Gvoždík, 2022, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 174 (107514): 1–11, provided a molecular tree that suggests that this nominal species is composed of at least 2 species.     

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