Spiny Throated Reed Frog

A Hyperolius from farmland and forest in the eastern highlands. Males are very small (18-24 mm) and the females are small to medium. Pupil horizontal. The males have black spines on the very flat gular flap, ventrum and ventral side of the hindlegs in the breeding season. Gular flap in males medium-sized, circular or wider than long with almost no loose skin surrounding it. Dorsum pale apple green or sometimes pale red-brown. A pattern in white or pale green seems to suggest two morphs, either with broad to narrow rather regular canthal and dorsolateral stripes or with a light triangle on the snout and a very irregular, often broken dorsolateral band.A very characteristic feature is the many black asperities covering the gular flap, ventrum and hindlimbs of males; southern populations also have black asperities on the dorsum in both sexes. Stevens (1971) reports the surprising phenomenon that both the black asperities and the male gular flap seem to disappear outside the breeding season.The tadpole has the usual tooth formula of 1/1+1,2.This account was taken from "Treefrogs of Africa" by Arne Schiøtz with kind permission from Edition Chimaira (http://www.chimaira.de/) publishers, Frankfurt am Main.

Found both in dense, evergreen forest and in open farmland, but always at rather high altitudes. This is a most inconspicuous species, and has until recently only been known from two localities far apart (Usambaras and Mulanje) but a search for it at the Udzungwas revealed it both in forest and in very open farmland, and it may be found wherever suitable habitats exist in the eastern Tanzanian-Malawi highlands.

Although the gular flap is well developed, no mating call has been attributed to this species, but quiet croaks has been heard when males are forced together in a bag. The breeding season is brief. 150-200 unpigmented eggs are placed above but close to water. Stevens (1971) records that a female returned to her eggs over several nights to squirt water over them (hydric brooding) - a remarkable observation.