Amphibian Species of the World 5.6, an Online Reference

Heleophryne natalensis Hewitt, 1913, Ann. Natal Mus., 2: 477. Holotype: Larva in the Marianhill Monastery Museum, KwaZulu-Natal, Rep. South Africa. Type locality: "at an altitude of 1500 feet in a tributary of the Krantz Kloof River . . . . a pool of little depth and small dimensions; the tributary flows through virgin forest along a valley of the Krantz Kloof, and has in its course several falls and cascades, the bed of the stream being largely covered with boulders", KwaZulu-Natal, Rep. South Africa; probably in the Krantzkloof Nature Reserve, 12 miles north-west of Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, Rep. South Africa, according to Poynton, 1964, Ann. Natal Mus., 17: 40.

Heleophryne sylvestris Hewitt, 1926, Ann. Natal Mus., 5: 441. Syntypes: TMP. Type locality: "the Woodbush [Forest Reserve], Transvaal", (now in Limpopo Province,) Rep. South Africa. Provisional synonymy by FitzSimons, 1947, Ann. Natal Mus., 11: 119.

Hadromophryne natalensis — Van Dijk, 2008, Afr. J. Herpetol., 57: 47.

English Names

Natal Ghost Frog (Passmore and Carruthers, 1978, J. Herpetol. Assoc. Afr., 19: 3; Passmore and Carruthers, 1979, S. Afr. Frogs: 56; Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 51; Channing, 2001, Amph. Cent. S. Afr.: 111; Boycott, 2004, in Minter et al. (eds.), Atlas Frogs S. Afr. Lesotho and Swaziland: 100).

Heleo Frog (Passmore and Carruthers, 1979, S. Afr. Frogs: 56).

Natal Torrent Frog (Van Dijk, 1978, J. Herpetol. Assoc. Afr., 17: 14).

Southeastern Ghost Frog (Van Dijk, 1978, J. Herpetol. Assoc. Afr., 17: 14).

Southeastern Torrent Frog (Van Dijk, 1978, J. Herpetol. Assoc. Afr., 17: 14).

Cascade Frog (Du Preez and Carruthers, 2009, Compl. Guide Frogs S. Afr.: 196).

Distribution

Through the KwaZulu-Natal midlands escarpment, Maluti Mountains, and along the Drakensberg mountains and western Swaziland to northeastern South Africa; northern highlands of Lesotho.

Comment

See accounts by Lambiris, 1988, Lammergeyer, 39: 45-46, Channing, 2001, Amph. Cent. S. Afr.: 111-112, and Boycott, 2004, in Minter et al. (eds.), Atlas Frogs S. Afr. Lesotho and Swaziland: 100-101. Grobler, Mafumo, and Minter, 2003, Biochem. Syst. Ecol., 31: 1023-1032, reported on interpopulational genetic variation that suggests that this is a species complex, within which Heleophryne sylvestris may be valid (M. Cunningham, personal commun.). Van Dijk, 2008, Afr. J. Herpetol., 57: 43-48, suggested that the synonymy of Heleophryne sylvestris should be reinvestigated. Du Preez and Carruthers, 2009, Compl. Guide Frogs S. Afr.: 196-199, provided an account. Bates and Haacke, 2003, Navors. Nas. Mus. Bloemfontein, 19: 113, discussed the species in Lesotho.

External Links

Please note: these links will take you to external websites not affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History. We are not responsible for their content.

• For additional sources of information from other sites search Google
• For images search Arkive, CalPhoto Images and Google Images
• To search the NIH genetic sequence database, see GenBank
• For information aggregation from other sites and some original accounts see AmphibiaWeb report
• For further information on conservation status and distribution see the IUCN Redlist
• For related information on conservation and images as well as observation see iNaturalist;
• for a quick link to their maps see iNaturalist KML