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

Cacosternum namaquense Werner, 1910

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Pyxicephalidae > Subfamily: Cacosterninae > Genus: Cacosternum > Species: Cacosternum namaquense

Cacosternum namaquense Werner, 1910, Denkschr. Med. Naturwiss. Ges. Jena, 16: 294. Holotype: "No. 678", collection not stated although other types from this collection are in the ZMB. Type locality: "Kamaggas . . . und Gemsbok bei Steinkopf, Klein-Namaland", [Cape Province, Rep. South Africa].

Common Names

Dainty Frog (Wager, 1965, Frogs S. Afr.: 167).

Namaqua Caco (Passmore and Carruthers, 1978, J. Herpetol. Assoc. Afr., 19: 6; Passmore and Carruthers, 1979, S. Afr. Frogs: 186; Scott, 2004, in Minter et al. (eds.), Atlas Frogs S. Afr. Lesotho and Swaziland: 230; Du Preez and Carruthers, 2009, Compl. Guide Frogs S. Afr.: 370).

Namaqua Froglet (Van Dijk, 1978, J. Herpetol. Assoc. Afr., 17: 16; Passmore and Carruthers, 1978, J. Herpetol. Assoc. Afr., 19: 6; Passmore and Carruthers, 1979, S. Afr. Frogs: 186).

Namaqua Metal Frog (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 98).

Namaqua Dainty Frog (Channing, 2001, Amph. Cent. S. Afr.: 290; Channing, Schmitz, Burger, and Kielgast, 2013, Zootaxa, 3701: 532).

Distribution

Extreme southern Namibia and Namaqualand in Rep. South Africa.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Namibia, South Africa

Comment

See accounts by Poynton, 1964, Ann. Natal Mus., 17: 150-151, Channing, 2001, Amph. Cent. S. Afr.: 290-291, Scott, 2004, in Minter et al. (eds.), Atlas Frogs S. Afr. Lesotho and Swaziland: 230-231, and Du Preez and Carruthers, 2009, Compl. Guide Frogs S. Afr.: 370-371. See Haacke, 1970, Ann. Transvaal Mus., 26: 278, for Namibian records. Removed from the synonymy of Cacosternum boettgeri by Poynton, 1964, Ann. Natal Mus., 17: XXX, where it had been placed by Boulenger, 1910, Ann. S. Afr. Mus., 5: 533. Boycott, De Villiers, and Scott, 2002, J. Herpetol., 36: 339, provided a map of the distribution. Bauer and Branch, 2001, Herpetol. Nat. Hist., 8: 125, commented on the range in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa. See comments by Channing, Schmitz, Burger, and Kielgast, 2013, Zootaxa, 3701: 518–550. Channing, Rödel, and Channing, 2012, Tadpoles of Africa: 335–336, provided information on comparative larval morphology. Channing and Rödel, 2019, Field Guide Frogs & Other Amph. Afr.: 370–371, provided a brief account, photograph, and range map. Angus, Telford, Ping, and Conradie, 2024, Zootaxa, 5512: 1–21, provided a niche-modeled distribution map, placement in a 16s mtDNA tree, and a description of the advertisement call.

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.