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Nganha Night Frog

Astylosternus nganhanus

About

Nganha night frog is only known from five specimens and therefore very little is understood about their behaviour and ecology.

It is almost certain that they reproduce through larval development, meaning that free living tadpoles hatch from eggs, as tadpoles have been found in rock pools in streams. This is unlike many other squeaker frogs which reproduce with direct development and the larval stage is bypassed and miniature forms of adults emerge from the eggs instead. The squeaker frogs are closely related to the “true frogs” in the family Ranidae, and diverged from all other frog families about 75 million years ago in the Late Cretaceous. This was 10 million years before the extinction of the dinosaurs, making them as different from their closest relatives as camels are to whales! This species is probably at severe risk from habitat loss due to small holder farming and subsistence wood extraction. The species is not known from any protected areas and the protection of the remaining habitat in the range of the species is urgently needed. The possibility of captive breeding should also be investigated for this species.

  • Order: Anura
  • Family: Arthroleptidae
  • Population: Rare
  • Trend: decreasing
  • Size: 45mm

EDGE Score

EDGE Score: 5.97 (?)
ED Score: 23.57 (?)
GE / IUCN Red List (?)
Not Evaluated Data Deficient Least Concern Near Threatened Vulnerable Endangered Critically Endangered Extinct in the Wild Extinct

Distribution

This species is known only from Mount Nganha on the Adamawa Plateau, Cameroon, at 1,400 – 1,700 metres above sea level.

Habitat and Ecology

This species is found along watercourses in a few gallery forests and in seepage areas in nearby grassland. Gallery forests are remnant areas of trees that have survived the intensive deforestation of an area as result of their accessible location. Their ecology and behaviour is very poorly understood as there is very little information.

Find out more

This wordcloud illustrates the threats facing this species. The size of each word indicates the extent of a species range that is affected by that threat (larger size means a greater area is affected). The colour of the word indicates how much that threat impacts the species (darker shades of red mean the threat is more severe).

Urban development Crops Logging

Threat wordcloud key:

Small area affected
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a
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Large area affected
Least severe
Most severe
Severity unknown
Source: The IUCN List of Threatened Species. Version 2017.1.
Available at: http://www.iucnredlist.org