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

Tomopterna cryptotis (Boulenger, 1907)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Pyxicephalidae > Subfamily: Cacosterninae > Genus: Tomopterna > Species: Tomopterna cryptotis

Rana cryptotis Boulenger, 1907, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Ser. 7, 20: 109. Syntypes: BMNH, by original designation, and MCZ 19268 (on exchange from BMNH, according to Barbour and Loveridge, 1946, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., 96: 182). Type locality: "Catequero, Ponang Kuma (Dongwenna), and in the Kafitu Swamps", Angola.

Rana delalandii cryptotis — Loveridge, 1936, Field Mus. Nat. Hist. Publ., Zool. Ser., 22: 90.

Pyxicephalus delalandii cryptotis — Pienaar, 1963, Koedoe, 6: 79.

Pyxicephalus delalandei cryptotis — Poynton, 1964, Ann. Natal Mus., 17: 96.

Rana (Pyxicephalus) delalandii cryptotis — Mertens, 1971, Abh. Senckenb. Naturforsch. Ges., 529: 7.

Tomopterna delalandei cryptotis — Stevens, 1974, Arnoldia, Zimbabwe, 6: 6.

Tomopterna cryptotis — Passmore and Carruthers, 1979, S. Afr. Frogs: 120; Poynton and Broadley, 1985, Ann. Natal Mus., 27: 125.

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

Tomopterna (Tomopterna) cryptotis — Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 56.

English Names

Striped Pyxie (Pienaar, 1963, Koedoe, 6: 79; Wager, 1965, Frogs S. Afr.: 134; Passmore and Carruthers, 1979, S. Afr. Frogs: 120; Lambiris, 1990 "1989", Monogr. Mus. Reg. Sci. Nat. Torino, 10: 83).

Striped Burrowing Frog (Pienaar, 1963, Koedoe, 6: 79; Passmore and Carruthers, 1979, S. Afr. Frogs: 120).

Common Burrowing Frog (Van Dijk, 1978, J. Herpetol. Assoc. Afr., 17: 15).

Tremolo Sand Frog (Passmore and Carruthers, 1978, J. Herpetol. Assoc. Afr., 19: 5; Passmore and Carruthers, 1979, S. Afr. Frogs: 120; Channing, 2004, in Minter et al. (eds.), Atlas Frogs S. Afr. Lesotho and Swaziland: 321-322).

Striped Sand Frog (Passmore and Carruthers, 1978, J. Herpetol. Assoc. Afr., 19: 5).

Catequero Bullfrog (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 110).

Cryptic Sand Frog (Channing and Howell, 2006, Amph. E. Afr.: 329).

Tremolo Sand Frog (Du Preez and Carruthers, 2009, Compl. Guide Frogs S. Afr.: 434).

Common Sand Frog (Largen and Spawls, 2010, Amph. Rept. Ethiopia Eritrea: 194).

Distribution

Southern Angola and eastern Namibia east to northeastern Rep. South Africa and Zimbabwe, into southern Zambia and western Mozambique.

Comment

See Tomopterna milletihorsini for North and East African records previously assigned to this species. See Carruthers and Carruthers, 1979, J. Herpetol. Assoc. Afr., 20: 3-5, for distribution records. See Lanza, 1981, Monit. Zool. Ital., N.S., Suppl., 15: 168, and Poynton and Broadley, 1985, Ann. Natal Mus., 27: 125-127, for account and synonymy. See Salvador, 1996, Smithson. Herpetol. Inform. Serv., 109, for account. Rödel, 2000, Herpetofauna W. Afr., 1: 76-78, provided an account. Pickersgill, 2007, Frog Search: 118-121, provided an account and suggested that this nominal species is composed of several lineages. See Largen, 2001, Tropical Zool., 14: 330-331, for comments on distribution.Channing and Howell, 2006, Amph. E. Afr.: 329-330, provided an account for East Africa, which presumably would not be both Tomopterna cryptotis and Tomopterna milletihorsini. Padial and De la Riva, 2004, Rev. Esp. Herpetol., 18: 95, provided records from Mauritania (now presumably reassigned to Tomopterna milletihorsini, DRF). Channing, 2004, in Minter et al. (eds.), Atlas Frogs S. Afr. Lesotho and Swaziland: 321-322, provided an account for South Africa. Du Preez and Carruthers, 2009, Compl. Guide Frogs S. Afr.: 434-435, provided an account for southern Africa. Bates and Haacke, 2003, Navors. Nas. Mus. Bloemfontein, 19: 124-125, discussed the species in Lesotho. See account, photograph, and map for Ethiopia by Largen and Spawls, 2010, Amph. Rept. Ethiopia Eritrea: 194-196 (these records presumably now reassigned to Tomopterna kachowskii, DRF). Zimkus and Larson, 2011, Zootaxa, 2933: 27-45, provided molecular data showing that records from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Somalia belong to other species (presumably Tomopterna kachowskii). Mercurio, 2011, Amph. Malawi: 291, provided an account for Malawi. Channing, Rödel, and Channing, 2012, Tadpoles of Africa: 356–357, provided information on comparative larval morphology. Marques, Ceríaco, Blackburn, and Bauer, 2018, Proc. California Acad. Sci., Ser. 4, 65 (Suppl. II): 153–154, provided a map for Angola and brief discussion of the literature. Phaka, Netherlands, Kruger, and Du Preez, 2017, Bilingual Field Guide Frogs Zululand: 71, provided a photograph, Zululand regional map, and a brief account of life history and identification. Wilson and Channing, 2019, Zootaxa, 4609: 225-246, provided a map that should help with the confusion in the earlier literature. Channing and Rödel, 2019, Field Guide Frogs & Other Amph. Afr.: 378–379, provided a brief account, photograph, and range map. Baptista, António, and Branch, 2019, Amph. Rept. Conserv., 13 (e203): 96–130, reported on specimens from Bicuar National Park, southwestern Angola and commented on the unsettled state of systematics.

External links:

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