Phrynobatrachus batesii (Boulenger, 1906)

Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Phrynobatrachidae > Genus: Phrynobatrachus > Species: Phrynobatrachus batesii

Arthroleptis batesii Boulenger, 1906, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Ser. 7, 17: 318. Syntypes: BMNH 1947.2.6.76–77 (formerly 1902.11.12.86-87) and 1947.2.6.78-80 (formerly 1906.5.28.105-107), according to Grandison, 1985, in Frost (ed.), Amph. Species World: 444, and museum records. Type locality: "Efulen and .... Zima [= Sangmelima]", Cameroon.

Pseudarthroleptis batesiDeckert, 1938, Sitzungsber. Ges. Naturforsch. Freunde Berlin, 1938: 159.

Phrynobatrachus batesiPerret, 1959, Bull. Soc. Neuchatel. Sci. Nat., 82: 251.

English Names

Bates' River Frog (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 103).

Bates' Puddle Frog (Channing and Rödel, 2019, Field Guide Frogs & Other Amph. Afr.: 284).

Distribution

Southeastern Nigeria and western Cameroon through Equatorial Guinea to Gabon (see comment); isolated and questionable record from Ghana (see comment) and southwestern Nigeria. 

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Nigeria

Likely/Controversially Present: Ghana

Comment

See account in Perret, 1966, Zool. Jahrb., Jena, Abt. Syst., 93: 359–360. The Ghana records by Schiøtz, 1964, Vidensk. Medd. Dansk Naturhist. Foren., 127: 1–17, may be based on another species, according to J.-L. Perret (personal communication to DRF). A form close to this species was reported from Gabon by Frétey and Blanc, 2002 "2001", Bull. Soc. Zool. France, 126: 386. Schiøtz, 1963, Vidensk. Medd. Dansk Naturhist. Foren., 125: 41, provided records for Nigeria. Frétey, 2008, Alytes, 25: 99–172, summarized the literature. Rödel, Ofori-Boateng, Penner, and Hillers, 2009, Zootaxa, 1970: 58, regarded the Ghana records of this species to be based on a misidentification. In species group C of Zimkus, Rödel, and Hillers, 2010, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 55: 883–900. Dewynter and Frétey, 2019, Cah. Fondation Biotope, 27: 31, summarized the literature for Gabon and suggested that although the species probably does get to Gabon, that all records previous assigned to this country are based on misidentifications. Channing and Rödel, 2019, Field Guide Frogs & Other Amph. Afr.: 284–285, provided a brief account, photograph, and range map (which excluded Ghana and Nigeria). In the Phrynobatrachus natalensis group of Goutte, Reyes-Velasco, and Boissinot, 2019, ZooKeys, 824: 53–70. In the Phrynobatracus werneri group according to Gvoždík, Nečas, Dolinay, Zimkus, Schmitz, and Fokam, 2020, PeerJ, 8 (e8393): 1–52. See brief account, 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.  

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