Rusty Forest Treefrog

A medium-sized Leptopelis (males 33-35 mm, females 42-48 mm) from western and north-central Africa with a rather smooth dorsum and reduced webbing. Brown with a darker pattern normally consisting of an occipital bar and an 'n' shaped dorsal marking.Among the West African fauna L. viridis can be distinguished from L. bufonides by its smooth dorsum and larger size, from L. hyloides by its more reduced webbing.In Zaria, Nigeria, Mr B. Walker photographed a green Leptopelis without a dark lateral stripe. It might be the first record of the green phase in this species (unless the type specimen was green in life, which the name would indicate), or it might be a different species.The females are able to bury themselves quickly by performing shovelling movements with their hindlegs. This was not observed in males, but males have been found buried in loose earth.Voice. - The males call widely scattered from the vegetation of larger bushes, often rather far from water, although in western Sierra Leone males were heard calling from low herbage, and in one instance from the ground. The voice is a rather loud clack sometimes followed by a slow buzzing. The clack has a very indistinct frequency-intensity maximum at 2000-2500 cps.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.

A savanna form abundant in West Africa and northern Cameroun, east till Garamba N. P. in north-eastern R. D. Congo.

The tadpole is very elongate, almost eel-shaped, and darkly pigmented. It reaches a length of up to 35 mm (12+23). Tooth formula 1, 3+3/3.