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

Phrynobatrachus minutus (Boulenger, 1895)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Phrynobatrachidae > Genus: Phrynobatrachus > Species: Phrynobatrachus minutus

Arthroleptis minutus Boulenger, 1895, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1895: 539. Holotype: BMNH 1947.2.30.51 (formerly 95.6.11.8), according to Grandison, 1985, in Frost (ed.), Amph. Species World: 448. Type locality: "Durro" (= Duro), Ethiopia.

Phrynobatrachus (Pararthroleptis) minutus — Laurent, 1941, Rev. Zool. Bot. Afr., 34: 205.

Phrynobatrachus minutus — Laurent, 1954, Publ. Cult. Companhia Diamantes Angola, 23: 74; Guibé and Lamotte, 1958, Bull. Mus. Natl. Hist. Nat. Paris, Ser. 2, 30: 257; Laurent, 1972, Explor. Parc Natl. Virunga, Ser. 2, 22: 114.

Common Names

Tiny River Frog (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 104).

Ethiopian Dwarf Puddle Frog (Largen and Spawls, 2010, Amph. Rept. Ethiopia Eritrea: 207).

Dwarf Puddle Frog (Channing and Rödel, 2019, Field Guide Frogs & Other Amph. Afr.: 310).

Distribution

Central plateau of Ethiopia west of the rift at elevations of 800–2800 m. See comments for discussion of records east of the Rift Valley.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Ethiopia

Endemic: Ethiopia

Comment

Formerly considered a synonym of Phrynobatrachus parvulus by Schmidt and Inger, 1959, Explor. Parc Natl. Upemba, Miss. G.F. de Witte, 56: 160. Lanza, 1990, Biogeographia, 14: 410, doubted the Somalia record by Loveridge, 1957, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., 117: 349, repeated by Grandison, 1985, in Frost (ed.), Amph. Species World: 448. Largen, 2001, Tropical Zool., 14: 287–306, reported on geographic variation and distribution and provided comparisons with Phrynobatrachus keniensis, Phrynobatrachus anotis, Phrynobatrachus bequaerti, Phrynobatrachus parvulus, Phrynobatrachus mababiensis, Phrynobatrachus scapularis, Phrynobatrachus rouxi, Phrynobatrachus albifer, Phrynobatrachus scheffleri, and Phrynobatrachus cryptotis. Lanza, 1990, Biogeographia, 14: 410, noted but doubted the Somalia record. Frétey, 2008, Alytes, 25: 99–172, summarized the literature. See comment under Phrynobatrachus scheffleri. In species group B of Zimkus, Rödel, and Hillers, 2010, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 55: 883–900. See account and map for Ethiopia by Largen and Spawls, 2010, Amph. Rept. Ethiopia Eritrea: 207. Marques, Ceríaco, Blackburn, and Bauer, 2018, Proc. California Acad. Sci., Ser. 4, 65 (Suppl. II): 138–139, provided a map of this nominal species for Angola and brief discussion of the literature, regarding all of these records as misidentifications. Channing and Rödel, 2019, Field Guide Frogs & Other Amph. Afr.: 310–311, provided a brief account, photograph, and range map. In the Phrynobatrachus calcaratus group of Goutte, Reyes-Velasco, and Boissinot, 2019, ZooKeys, 824: 53–70. Tiutenko and Zinenko, 2020, Salamandra, 56: 135–147, commented on the misidentification of specimens of Phrynobatrachus inexpectatus and Phrynobatrachus cf. natalensis east of the Rift in the Bale Mountain region and implied that Phrynobatrachus minutus does not occur east of the Rift Valley. Kassie Teme, Bekele Simegn, and Afework Bogale, 2022, Global Ecol. Conserv., 38 (e02211): 1–12, reported the species from Keffa Zone, southwestern Ethiopia, and discussed habitat.

External links:

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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 observations see iNaturalist
For access to available specimen data for this species, from over 350 scientific collections, go to Vertnet.