Chiromantis rufescens (Günther, 1869)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Rhacophoridae > Subfamily: Rhacophorinae > Genus: Chiromantis > Species: Chiromantis rufescens

Polypedates rufescens Günther, 1869 "1868", Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1868: 486. Holotype: BMNH 1947.2.7.33 (formerly 1864.1.25.2), according to museum records. Type locality: "West Africa".

Chiromantis guineensis Buchholz and Peters In Peters, 1875, Monatsber. Preuss. Akad. Wiss. Berlin, 1875: 203. Syntypes: ZMB 8356 (1 adult and several larvae), according to Bauer, Günther, and Klipfel, 1995, in Bauer et al. (eds.), Herpetol. Contr. W.C.H. Peters: 50, and 1 adult and several larvae in the ZMG according to Herrmann, 1989, Veröff. Naturhist. Mus. Schleusingen, 4: 13-14. Type locality: "Cameruns (Victoria)". Synonymy by Boulenger, 1882, Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus., Ed. 2: 92.

Chiromantis rufescens — Boulenger, 1882, Cat. Batr. Sal. Coll. Brit. Mus., Ed. 2: 92.

Rhacophorus (Chiromantis) guineensis — Knauer, 1878, Naturgesch. Lurche: 112.

Common Names

African Foam-nest Treefrog (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 111).

Western Foam-nest Tree Frog (Ananjeva, Borkin, Darevsky, and Orlov, 1988, Dict. Amph. Rept. Five Languages: 131; Channing and Howell, 2006, Amph. E. Afr.: 338).

Western Foam-nest Frog (Channing and Rödel, 2019, Field Guide Frogs & Other Amph. Afr.: 210). 

Distribution

Rainforests of West Africa from Sierra Leone and Liberia to Uganda and south to extreme western Dem. Rep. Congo, and extending south into northwestern Angola; presumably throughout the intervening areas except for the Dahomey Gap; reported from northeastern Dem. Rep. Congo (see comment); possibly into Togo and Benin.  

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Angola, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Democratic Republic of the, Congo, Republic of the, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Uganda

Likely/Controversially Present: Benin, Togo

Comment

For synonymy and account see Schiøtz, 1967, Spolia Zool. Mus. Haun., 25: 21. See short accounts in De Witte, 1928, Rev. Zool. Afr., 15: 50-53, and Poynton and Broadley, 1987, Ann. Natal Mus., 28: 165-166. De la Riva, 1994, Rev. Esp. Herpetol., 8: 135, provided a record for Equatorial Guinea. Frétey and Blanc, 2002 "2001", Bull. Soc. Zool. France, 126: 384, reported this species from Gabon. Channing and Howell, 2006, Amph. E. Afr.: 338-339, provided an account. Lasso, Rial, Castroviejo, and De la Riva, 2002, Graellsia, 58: 21-34, provided notes on ecological distribution in Equatorial Guinea. Schiøtz, 1963, Vidensk. Medd. Dansk Naturhist. Foren., 125: 61, provided records for Nigeria. Hillers and Rödel, 2007, Salamandra, 43: 1-10, provided a record for Liberia. Schiøtz, 1999, Treefrogs Afr.: 37–38, provided a brief account. Channing, Rödel, and Channing, 2012, Tadpoles of Africa: 368–368, provided information on comparative larval morphology. Jongsma, Tobi, Dixon-MacCallum, Bamba-Kaya, Yoga, Mbega, Mve Beh, Emrich, and Blackburn, 2017, Amph. Rept. Conserv., 11 (1: e144): 16, provided records for southeastern Gabon and briefly discussed habitat and range. Baptista, Conradie, Vaz Pinto, and Branch, 2019, In Huntley, Russo, Lages, and Ferrand (eds.), Biodiversity in Angola: 258, noted a record from Boma, Dem. Rep. Congo, on the Angola border, suggesting its eventual discovery there. Dewynter and Frétey, 2019, Cah. Fondation Biotope, 27: 41, summarized the literature for Gabon and provided photographs (p. 67). Rödel and Glos, 2019, Zoosyst. Evol., 95: 27–28, reported this species from the Krahn-Bassa Proposed Protected Area in southeastern Liberia and the Foya Proposed Protected Area in western Liberia, and commented on the nominal species being a complex and habitat preference. Channing and Rödel, 2019, Field Guide Frogs & Other Amph. Afr.: 210–211, provided a brief account, photograph, and range map. 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, but this requires confirmation as it is so far out of the otherwise known range. Leaché, Portik, Rivera, Rödel, Penner, Gvoždík, Greenbaum, Jongsma, Ofori-Boateng, Burger, Eniang, Bell, and Fujita, 2019, J. Biogeograph., 46: 2706-2721, reported on landscape genetics, historical diversification, biogeography, and suggested the binomial represents a complex of 6 lineage-species. See brief account, photographs, 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. Ernst, Lautenschläger, Branquima, and Hölting, 2020, Zoosyst. Evol., 96: 256, noted the presence in Uigé Province, northwestern Angola. Kako-Wanzalire, Mongo, Ilonga, Mapoli, Mbumba, Neema, Tungaluna, Itoka, and Bogaert, 2021, Tropicultura, 39 (1: 1709): 1–19, briefly discussed habitat preference in north-central Dem. Rep. Congo. Badjedjea, Masudi, Akaibe, and Gvoždík, 2022, Amph. Rept. Conserv., 16 (1: e301): 63, commented on a population of Chiromantis cf. rufescens from the Kokolopori Bonobo Nature Reserve, Tshuapa Province, Dem. Rep. Congo.   

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