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

Hymenochirus boettgeri (Tornier, 1896)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Pipidae > Subfamily: Dactylethrinae > Genus: Hymenochirus > Species: Hymenochirus boettgeri

Xenopus boettgeri Tornier, 1896, in Möbius (ed.), Deutsch Ost-Afr., 3: 163. Holotype: ZMB 11521 according to Bauer, Günther, and Robeck, 1996, Mitt. Zool. Mus. Berlin, 72: 270. Type locality: "Ituri-Fähre bei Wandesoma", Dem. Rep. Congo.

Hymenochirus boettgeri — Boulenger, 1896, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Ser. 6, 18: 420.

Hymenochirus boettgeri boettgeri — Perret and Mertens, 1957, Bull. Inst. Franç. Afr. Noire, Ser. A, 19: 552.

Hymenochirus boettgeri camerunensis Perret and Mertens, 1957, Bull. Inst. Franç. Afr. Noire, Ser. A, 19: 552. Holotype: SMF 52300, by original designation. Type locality: "Foulassi", 6 km northwest of Sangmelima, Cameroon.

Common Names

Zaire Dwarf Clawed Frog (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 96).

Boettger's Dwarf Clawed Frog ( Channing and Rödel, 2019, Field Guide Frogs & Other Amph. Afr.: 40).

Distribution

Southern Nigeria and Cameroon and through the Zaire Basin to eastern Dem. Rep. Congo, northern Rep. Congo, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea; expected in the Cabinda enclave of Angola. See comment.

Geographic Occurrence

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

Likely/Controversially Present: Angola

Comment

Perret and Mertens, 1957, Bull. Inst. Franç. Afr. Noire, Ser. A, 19: 552, distinguished the subspecies Hymenochirus boettgeri boettgeri and Hymenochirus boettgeri camerunensis, closely related to Hymenochirus feae. See also account in Perret, 1966, Zool. Jahrb., Jena, Abt. Syst., 93: 305-308. Lasso, Rial, Castroviejo, and De la Riva, 2002, Graellsia, 58: 21-34, provided notes on ecological distribution in Equatorial Guinea. Channing, Rödel, and Channing, 2012, Tadpoles of Africa: 286–287, provided information on comparative larval morphology. Frétey, Dewynter, and Blanc, 2011, Clé de détermination, Amph. Afri. Centr. Angola: 1–232, provided a key for identification. Mezzasalma, Glaw, Odierna, Petraccioli, and Guarino, 2015, Zool. Anz., 258: 47–53, reported on the karyology of Pseudhymenochirus merlini and Hymenochirus boettgeri as part of a general discussion of karyological evolution in the family. Dewynter, Chirio, Melki, Cordier, and Frétey, 2017, Cah. Fondation Biotope, 11: 14, provided a brief account and photographs of Hymenochirus cf. boettgeri from the Mount Koumouna-Bouali area of Gabon. Dewynter and Frétey, 2019, Cah. Fondation Biotope, 27: 34, summarized the literature for Gabon (of Hymenochirus cf. boettgeri) and provided photographs (p. 63). Mali, Banda, Chifundera, Badjedjea, Sebe, Lokasola, Ewango, Tungaluna, and Akaibe, 2019, Am. J. Zool., 2: 38–43, reported the species from the Okapi Wildlife Reserve, northeastern Dem. Rep. Congo. Channing and Rödel, 2019, Field Guide Frogs & Other Amph. Afr.: 40–41, provided a brief account, photograph, and range map. See brief account and 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. Badjedjea, Masudi, Akaibe, and Gvoždík, 2022, Amph. Rept. Conserv., 16 (1: e301): 59, commented on a population of Hymenochirus cf. boettgeri from the Kokolopori Bonobo Nature Reserve, Tshuapa Province, Dem. Rep. Congo, and the taxonomic questions raised by these specimens. Figueroa, Low, and Lim, 2023, Zootaxa, 5287: 242, noted that his species has no established populations in Singapore. Gvoždík, Knytl, Zassi-Boulou, Fornaini, and Bergelova, 2024, Zool. J. Linn. Soc., 200: 1034–1047, reported on tetraploidy in the northern Rep. Congo, different from the diploid specimens in captivity (possiby Hymenochirus boettgeri x curtipes), suggesting that the range of the nominal species requires careful delimitation of lineages.

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 access to general information see Wikipedia
For additional sources of general information from other websites search Google
For access to relevant technical literature search Google Scholar
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 information on distribution, habitat, and conservation see the Map of Life
For related information on conservation and images as well as observations see iNaturalist