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

Ptychadena obscura (Schmidt and Inger, 1959)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Ptychadenidae > Genus: Ptychadena > Species: Ptychadena obscura

Rana (Ptychadena) obscura Schmidt and Inger, 1959, Explor. Parc Natl. Upemba, Miss. G.F. de Witte, 56: 85. Holotype: IRSNB 1425; subsequently reported as IRSNB 1189 by Lang, 1990, Doc. Trav., Inst. R. Sci. Nat. Belg., 59: 12. Type locality: "Kaziba, Parc National de l'Upemba, Province Katanga, Belgian Congo [=Dem. Rep. Congo]".

Ptychadena obscura — Poynton, 1970, Ann. Natal Mus., 20: 369; Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 56, by implication.

Rana (Ptychadena) obscura — Dubois, 1981, Monit. Zool. Ital., N.S., Suppl., 15: 233, by implication.

Ptychadena (Ptychadena) obscura — Dubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 316.

Common Names

Kaziba Grassland Frog (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 105).

Dark Ridged Frog (Channing, 2001, Amph. Cent. S. Afr.: 333).

Obscure Grass Frog (Channing and Rödel, 2019, Field Guide Frogs & Other Amph. Afr.: 340).

Distribution

Parc National Upemba, Katanga Province (Dem. Rep. Congo) and northern Zambia, possibly into adjacent eastern Angola (see comment), in grasslands above 750 m elevation.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Congo, Democratic Republic of the, Zambia

Likely/Controversially Present: Angola

Comment

See Poynton and Broadley, 1985, Ann. Natal Mus., 27: 147-148, and Channing, 2001, Amph. Cent. S. Afr.: 333-334. Baptista, Conradie, Vaz Pinto, and Branch, 2019, In Huntley, Russo, Lages, and Ferrand (eds.), Biodiversity in Angola: 257, noted specimens from northern Mwinilunga District, northwestern Zambia, suggesting its possible occurrence in adjacent eastern Angola. See Bittencourt-Silva, 2019, Amph. Rept. Conserv., 13 (2: e181): 12, for comment on the population in western Zambia and its possible relation to Ptychadena broadleyi. Channing and Rödel, 2019, Field Guide Frogs & Other Amph. Afr.: 340, provided a brief account and range map.

External links:

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