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

Pyxicephalus adspersus Tschudi, 1838

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Pyxicephalidae > Subfamily: Pyxicephalinae > Genus: Pyxicephalus > Species: Pyxicephalus adspersus

Pyxicephalus adspersus Tschudi, 1838, Classif. Batr.: 46, 84. Syntypes: MNHNP 4525 and 4527 (8 specimens total) (according to Guibé, 1950 "1948", Cat. Types Amph. Mus. Natl. Hist. Nat.: 40) and RMNH 2258 (2 specimens), according to Gassó Miracle, van den Hoek Ostende, and Arntzen, 2007, Zootaxa, 1482: 53. Type locality: "Promontorium Bonae Spei" (=Cape of Good Hope, Rep. South Africa).

Bombinator adspersus Tschudi, 1838, Classif. Batr.: 84. Name proposed as an objective synonym of Pyxicephalus adspersus to reference jar label names of syntypes in the RMNH and MNHNP.

Tomopterna adspersa — Duméril and Bibron, 1841, Erp. Gen., 8: 444; Günther, 1859 "1858", Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus.: 7.

Pyxicephalus adspersus — Duméril and Bibron, 1841, Erp. Gen., 8: 444; Werner, 1910, Denkschr. Med. Naturwiss. Ges. Jena, 16: 298; FitzSimons, 1930, Ann. Transvaal Mus., 14: 41.

Rana adspersa — Boulenger, 1882, Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus., Ed. 2: 33; Boulenger, 1907, Mem. Proc. Manchester Lit. Philos. Soc., 51: 5.

Rana (Pyxicephalus) adspersus — Monard, 1937 "1936", Bull. Soc. Neuchatel. Sci. Nat., 62: 46.

Rana (Pyxicephalus) adspersa — Guibé, 1950 "1948", Cat. Types Amph. Mus. Natl. Hist. Nat.: 40; Mertens, 1971, Abh. Senckenb. Naturforsch. Ges., 529: 7; Dubois, 1981, Monit. Zool. Ital., N.S., Suppl., 15: 233; by implication.

Rana adspersa adspersa — Loveridge, 1950, J. E. Afr. Nat. Hist. Soc., 19: 253; Mertens, 1955, Abh. Senckenb. Naturforsch. Ges., 490: 28.

Rana (Pyxicephalus) adspersa — Mertens, 1971, Abh. Senckenb. Naturforsch. Ges., 529: 71.

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

Pyxicephalus adspersus adspersus — Parry, 1982, Ann. Natal Mus., 25: 289; Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 66; by implication.

English Names

Bullfrog (Hewitt, 1937, Guide Vert. Fauna E. Cape Province, Rept. Amph. Fishes: 91; Rose, 1950, Rep. Amph. S. Afr.: 46; Wager, 1965, Frogs S. Afr.: 130; Broadley, 1973, J. Herpetol. Assoc. Afr., 10: 23; Van Dijk, 1978, J. Herpetol. Assoc. Afr., 17: 15; Passmore and Carruthers, 1978, J. Herpetol. Assoc. Afr., 19: 4; Passmore and Carruthers, 1979, S. Afr. Frogs: 114).

South African Speckled Frog (Cochran, 1961, Living Amph. World: 153).

Giant Pyxie (Wager, 1965, Frogs S. Afr.: 130; Passmore and Carruthers, 1979, S. Afr. Frogs: 114).

African Bullfrog (Wood, 1863, Illust. Nat. Hist., 3: 153; Broadley, 1971, Puku, 6: 112; Passmore and Carruthers, 1978, J. Herpetol. Assoc. Afr., 19: 4; Channing, 2001, Amph. Cent. S. Afr.: 346; Channing and Howell, 2006, Amph. E. Afr.: 319).

Giant Pyxie (Passmore and Carruthers, 1978, J. Herpetol. Assoc. Afr., 19: 4).

Giant Bullfrog (Lambiris, 1990 "1989", Monogr. Mus. Reg. Sci. Nat. Torino, 10: 78; Du Preez and Cook, 2004, in Minter et al. (eds.), Atlas Frogs S. Afr. Lesotho and Swaziland: 300; Du Preez and Carruthers, 2009, Compl. Guide Frogs S. Afr.: 414).

Highveld Bullfrog (Du Preez and Cook, 2004, in Minter et al. (eds.), Atlas Frogs S. Afr. Lesotho and Swaziland: 300 [alternative name]).

Tschudi's African Bullfrog (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 106).

Distribution

Dry savannas of southwestern Angola, Namibia, and inland Rep. South Africa from central Eastern Cape Province, through northern KwaZulu-Natal, western Lesotho, and Eswatini north through Botswana, Zimbabwe, and western Mozambique and Malawi to Zambia, Tanzania and Kenya; likely to be found in Katanga, Dem. Rep. Congo and extreme southern Angola.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Likely/Controversially Present: Congo, Democratic Republic of the

Comment

Species limits revised by Channing, Du Preez, and Passmore, 1994, J. Zool., London, 234: 141-148, who summarized previous confusions and the poorly understood distribution. See comment under Pyxicephalus edulis. Channing, 2001, Amph. Cent. S. Afr.; 346-348, Du Preez and Cook, 2004, in Minter et al. (eds.), Atlas Frogs S. Afr. Lesotho and Swaziland: 300-303, Channing and Howell, 2006, Amph. E. Afr.: 319-322, and Pickersgill, 2007, Frog Search: 103-104 (who discussed a possibly cryptic species on page 104-106, provided accounts. Bates and Haacke, 2003, Navors. Nas. Mus. Bloemfontein, 19: 124, discussed the species in Lesotho. Mercurio, 2011, Amph. Malawi: 288-290, provided an account for Malawi. Channing, Rödel, and Channing, 2012, Tadpoles of Africa: 344, provided information on comparative larval morphology. Marques, Ceríaco, Blackburn, and Bauer, 2018, Proc. California Acad. Sci., Ser. 4, 65 (Suppl. II): 153, noted that nominal Pyxicephalus adspersus from Angola are Pyxicephalus edulis. See Bittencourt-Silva, 2019, Amph. Rept. Conserv., 13 (2: e181): 12–13, for comment on population likely of this species in western Zambia. Channing and Rödel, 2019, Field Guide Frogs & Other Amph. Afr.: 376–377, 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.

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