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

Xenopus epitropicalis Fischberg, Colombelli, and Picard, 1982

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Pipidae > Subfamily: Dactylethrinae > Genus: Xenopus > Species: Xenopus epitropicalis

Xenopus epitropicalis Fischberg, Colombelli, and Picard, 1982, Alytes, 1: 53. Holotype: BMNH 1982.462, by original designation. Type locality: "confluent de la Funa et de la Kemi, à 8 km au sud du centre de Kinshasa (Zaïre); altitude 350 m; 4° 18′ S, 15° 18′ E".

Silurana epitropicalis — Cannatella and Trueb, 1988, Zool. J. Linn. Soc., 94: 1–38; Dubois, Ohler, and Pyron, 2021, Megataxa, 5: 413.

Xenopus (Silurana) epitropicalis — Kobel, Loumont, and Tinsley, 1996, in Tinsley and Kobel (eds.), Biol. Xenopus: 21; Kobel, Barandun, and Thiebaud, 1998, Herpetol. J., 8: 13.

English Names

Southern Tropical Platanna (Channing, 2001, Amph. Cent. S. Afr.: 239).

Congolese Clawed Frog (Evans, Carter, Greenbaum, Gvoždík, Kelley, McLaughlin, Pauwels, Portik, Stanley, Tinsley, Tobias, and Blackburn, 2015, PLoS One, 10(12): e0142823: 23).

Distribution

Highly provisional at this point due to confusion with Xenopus mellotropicalis: found definitely only around Kinshasa, Dem. Rep. Congo and northeast from there along the Congo River to near the confluence of the Kwa River and from Point Noire, Rep. Congo and the Cabinda enclave and the extreme northeast of Angola; likely into northeastern Dem. Rep. Congo; previous records from west and north of the Sanage River in Cameroon are likely attributable to other species.

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Angola, Cameroon, Congo, Democratic Republic of the, Congo, Republic of the, Gabon

Comment

Xenopus epitropicalis is tetraploid (2n=40) with respect to Xenopus tropicalis (see Fischberg, Colombelli, and Picard, 1982, Alytes, 1: 53); although morphologically difficult to distinguish, these species also differ in mating call characteristics (Loumont, 1983, Rev. Suisse Zool., 90: 174). See account by Channing, 2001, Amph. Cent. S. Afr.: 239–240. Frétey and Blanc, 2002 "2001", Bull. Soc. Zool. France, 126: 379, included this species in their list of species from Gabon. Evans, 2008, Frontiers Biosci., 13: 4687–4706, provided a detailed discussion of phylogenetics and reticulate evolution. See account by Evans, Carter, Greenbaum, Gvoždík, Kelley, McLaughlin, Pauwels, Portik, Stanley, Tinsley, Tobias, and Blackburn, 2015, PLoS One, 10(12): e0142823: 1–51, who provided an account and range map. Knytl, Smolík, Kubíčková, Tlapáková, Evans, and Krylov, 2017, PLoS One, 12 (5: e0177087): 1–16, reported on karyological evolution. Marques, Ceríaco, Blackburn, and Bauer, 2018, Proc. California Acad. Sci., Ser. 4, 65 (Suppl. II): 59, discussed the literature of Xenopus cf. epitropicalis and provided a map for Angola. Channing and Rödel, 2019, Field Guide Frogs & Other Amph. Afr.: 42–43, provided a brief account, photograph, and range map. Sánchez-Vialas, Calvo-Revuelta, Castroviejo-Fisher, and De la Riva, 2020, Proc. California Acad. Sci., Ser. 4, 66: 137–230, did not include this species in the Equatorial Guinea fauna.

External links:

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For access to general information see Wikipedia
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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.