The smallest of its kind: Description of a new cryptic Amnirana species (Amphibia, Anura, Ranidae) from West African rainforests.

The distribution of the White-Lipped Frog Amnirana albolabris was long assumed to extend from eastern-central to western African rainforests. However, recent molecular phylogenetic analyses revealed that this taxon likely represents several undescribed species. Because the name-bearing types were collected in Gabon, the distantly related West African populations clearly represent an undescribed species that partly occurs in sympatry with Amnirana fonensis. Based on an integrative taxonomic approach, including molecular, morphological, and acoustic data, we describe the 'albolabris' populations from the Upper Guinean Forest Zone as a new species, and redescribe the morphologically similar A. fonensis on the bases of a larger series of genotyped individuals, including the first known females. We also provide new biological information for A. fonensis, including their advertisement call, habitat, and reproductive data. The new species is sister to A. fonensis and the two species differ by 5.8% in the mitochondrial 16S ribosomal RNA gene. Morphologically, males of the new species are smaller and have relatively smaller humeral glands. Females of the new species seem to have shorter legs than A. fonensis. In comparison to A. fonensis, the advertisement call of the new species has a higher dominant frequency and more pronounced frequency modulation. The two species differ in their distribution and habitat preferences, as revealed by environmental niche modelling. Whereas the new species is restricted to the Upper Guinean forests and thus is a true lowland-rainforest inhabitant, A. fonensis lives predominantly in Guinean montane forests in the forest-savanna mosaic zone.

A new species of Puddle Frog, genus Phrynobatrachus (Amphibia: Anura: Phrynobatrachidae) from Ghana.

We describe a new species of Phrynobatrachus from the eastern part of the Upper Guinea forest region, Ghana, West Africa. Morphologically, the new species can be distinguished from all of its congeners by the combination of a slender body, short and pointed snout, a relatively warty dorsum, a black-spotted throat in both sexes, a gular flap in males, a dark spotted chest, a white-greyish venter with occasional blackish spots, rudimentary pedal webbing, none to slightly dilated finger tips and strongly delated toe tips, presence of both inner and outer metatarsal tubercles and absence of a dark face mask, eyelid tubercles and longer dorsal ridges. We collected mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequence data from the 16S rRNA gene to measure the genetic diversity of the new species, and to estimate phylogenetic relationships. The new species is a distinct and monophyletic evolutionary lineage most closely related to Phrynobatrachus gutturosus, P. fraterculus and P. maculiventris. The discovery of this new species highlights that the biodiversity of West African forests is still incompletely known and that the few remaining forests need urgent protection.

A new Puddle Frog, genus Phrynobatrachus (Amphibia: Anura: Phrynobatrachidae), from the eastern part of the Upper Guinea biodiversity hotspot, West Africa.

We describe a new species of Phrynobatrachus from swamp forests in the southern border region of Ivory Coast and Ghana. The new species differs from all other known West African Phrynobatrachus by the combination of adult snout-vent-length being between 20 and 30 mm; absence of a spiny tubercle on the eyelid; presence of a dark face mask; a black throat in adult males; narrow and partly indistinct scapular ridges or comma shaped warts; distinct spinulae on males' throats and dorsal surfaces; pronounced pedal webbing; round finger- and toe tips, not enlarged to discs; a white belly with small blackish spots in both sexes; more than one wide dark cross bar on hind legs; and rosé to reddish colour on ventral parts of hind legs in both sexes. It is further defined by its genetic and acoustic characters. It is morphologically and genetically most similar to P. liberiensis and P. intermedius.