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Purcell's Ghost Frog
The Purcell's ghost frog (''Heleophryne purcelli'') is a species of frog in the family Heleophrynidae. It is endemic to Western Cape Province, South Africa. Its natural habitat is fynbos heathland. Breeding takes place in perennial streams. Their tadpole A tadpole is the larval stage in the biological life cycle of an amphibian. Most tadpoles are fully aquatic, though some species of amphibians have tadpoles that are terrestrial. Tadpoles have some fish-like features that may not be found i ...s take two years to develop fully. Purcell's ghost frog is a common species that is not significantly threatened, but is locally affected by introduced species. References Heleophryne Endemic amphibians of South Africa Taxa named by William Lutley Sclater Amphibians described in 1898 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Neobatrachia-stub ...
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William Lutley Sclater
William Lutley Sclater (23 September 1863 – 4 July 1944) was a British zoologist and museum director. He was the son of Philip Lutley Sclater and was named after his paternal grandfather, also William Lutley Sclater. Life William's mother, Jane Anne Eliza, was the daughter of Sir David Hunter-Blair, 3rd Baronet and a sister-in-law of Sir Walter Elliot the Indian naturalist. Sclater received his Master of Arts degree in Natural Science from Keble College at Oxford in 1885. He worked for two years as a Demonstrator at Cambridge under Professor Adam Sedgwick and went on a collecting trip to British Guiana in 1886. He published about birds in ''The Ibis'' in 1887. In the same year, he received an appointment as a deputy superintendent of the Indian Museum in Calcutta from 1887 until 1891, when he joined the science faculty of Eton College. It was at Eton that he met his future wife, Charlotte Mellen Stephenson, an American divorcée whose two sons attended the school. The coupl ...
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Frog
A frog is any member of a diverse and largely Carnivore, carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order (biology), order Anura (ανοὐρά, literally ''without tail'' in Ancient Greek). The oldest fossil "proto-frog" ''Triadobatrachus'' is known from the Early Triassic of Madagascar, but molecular clock, molecular clock dating suggests their split from other amphibians may extend further back to the Permian, 265 Myr, million years ago. Frogs are widely distributed, ranging from the tropics to subarctic regions, but the greatest concentration of species diversity is in tropical rainforest. Frogs account for around 88% of extant amphibian species. They are also one of the five most diverse vertebrate orders. Warty frog species tend to be called toads, but the distinction between frogs and toads is informal, not from Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy or evolutionary history. An adult frog has a stout body, protruding eyes, anteriorly-attached tongue, limb ...
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Endemism
Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsewhere. For example, the Cape sugarbird is found exclusively in southwestern South Africa and is therefore said to be ''endemic'' to that particular part of the world. An endemic species can be also be referred to as an ''endemism'' or in scientific literature as an ''endemite''. For example '' Cytisus aeolicus'' is an endemite of the Italian flora. '' Adzharia renschi'' was once believed to be an endemite of the Caucasus, but it was later discovered to be a non-indigenous species from South America belonging to a different genus. The extreme opposite of an endemic species is one with a cosmopolitan distribution, having a global or widespread range. A rare alternative term for a species that is endemic is "precinctive", which applies to ...
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Western Cape Province
The Western Cape is a province of South Africa, situated on the south-western coast of the country. It is the fourth largest of the nine provinces with an area of , and the third most populous, with an estimated 7 million inhabitants in 2020. About two-thirds of these inhabitants live in the metropolitan area of Cape Town, which is also the provincial capital. The Western Cape was created in 1994 from part of the former Cape Province. The two largest cities are Cape Town and George. Geography The Western Cape Province is roughly L-shaped, extending north and east from the Cape of Good Hope, in the southwestern corner of South Africa. It stretches about northwards along the Atlantic coast and about eastwards along the South African south coast (Southern Indian Ocean). It is bordered on the north by the Northern Cape and on the east by the Eastern Cape. The total land area of the province is , about 10.6% of the country's total. It is roughly the size of England or the St ...
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South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countries of Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe; and to the east and northeast by Mozambique and Eswatini. It also completely enclaves the country Lesotho. It is the southernmost country on the mainland of the Old World, and the second-most populous country located entirely south of the equator, after Tanzania. South Africa is a biodiversity hotspot, with unique biomes, plant and animal life. With over 60 million people, the country is the world's 24th-most populous nation and covers an area of . South Africa has three capital cities, with the executive, judicial and legislative branches of government based in Pretoria, Bloemfontein, and Cape Town respectively. The largest city is Johannesburg. About 80% of the population are Black South Afri ...
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Habitat
In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ecological niche. Thus "habitat" is a species-specific term, fundamentally different from concepts such as environment or vegetation assemblages, for which the term "habitat-type" is more appropriate. The physical factors may include (for example): soil, moisture, range of temperature, and light intensity. Biotic factors will include the availability of food and the presence or absence of predators. Every species has particular habitat requirements, with habitat generalist species able to thrive in a wide array of environmental conditions while habitat specialist species requiring a very limited set of factors to survive. The habitat of a species is not necessarily found in a geographical area, it can be the interior ...
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Fynbos
Fynbos (; meaning fine plants) is a small belt of natural shrubland or heathland vegetation located in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape provinces of South Africa. This area is predominantly coastal and mountainous, with a Mediterranean climate and rainy winters. The fynbos ecoregion is within the Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub biome. In fields related to biogeography, fynbos is known for its exceptional degree of biodiversity and endemism, consisting of about 80% (8,500 fynbos) species of the Cape floral kingdom, where nearly 6,000 of them are endemic. This land continues to face severe human-caused threats, but due to the many economic uses of the fynbos, conservation efforts are being made to help restore it. Overview and history The word fynbos is often confusingly said to mean "fine bush" in Afrikaans, as "bos" means "bush". Typical fynbos foliage is ericoid rather than fine. The term, in its pre-Afrikaans, Dutch form, ''fynbosch'', was recorded by Nob ...
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Heathland
A heath () is a shrubland habitat found mainly on free-draining infertile, acidic soils and characterised by open, low-growing woody vegetation. Moorland is generally related to high-ground heaths with—especially in Great Britain—a cooler and damper climate. Heaths are widespread worldwide but are fast disappearing and considered a rare habitat in Europe. They form extensive and highly diverse communities across Australia in humid and sub-humid areas where fire regimes with recurring burning are required for the maintenance of the heathlands.Specht, R.L. 'Heathlands' in 'Australian Vegetation' R.H. Groves ed. Cambridge University Press 1988 Even more diverse though less widespread heath communities occur in Southern Africa. Extensive heath communities can also be found in the Texas chaparral, New Caledonia, central Chile, and along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. In addition to these extensive heath areas, the vegetation type is also found in scattered locations acro ...
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Tadpole
A tadpole is the larval stage in the biological life cycle of an amphibian. Most tadpoles are fully aquatic, though some species of amphibians have tadpoles that are terrestrial. Tadpoles have some fish-like features that may not be found in adult amphibians such as a lateral line, gills and swimming tails. As they undergo metamorphosis, they start to develop functional lungs for breathing air, and the diet of tadpoles changes drastically. A few amphibians, such as some members of the frog family Brevicipitidae, undergo direct development i.e., they do not undergo a free-living larval stage as tadpoles instead emerging from eggs as fully formed "froglet" miniatures of the adult morphology. Some other species hatch into tadpoles underneath the skin of the female adult or are kept in a pouch until after metamorphosis. Having no hard skeletons, it might be expected that tadpole fossils would not exist. However, traces of biofilms have been preserved and fossil tadpoles have ...
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Heleophryne
''Heleophryne'' is a genus of ghost frogs. They are known from mountainous regions of South Africa, Lesotho, and Eswatini. One member of the genus, the Table Mountain ghost frog (''H. rosei'') is considered an EDGE species. Species The following species are classified in this genus: * Cederberg ghost frog (''Heleophryne depressa'') FitzSimons, 1946 * Hewitt's ghost frog (''Heleophryne hewitti'') Boycott, 1988 * Eastern ghost frog (''Heleophryne orientalis'') FitzSimons, 1946 * Purcell's ghost frog (''Heleophryne purcelli'') Sclater, 1898 * Royal ghost frog (''Heleophryne regis'') Hewitt, 1910 * Rose's ghost frog Rose's ghost frog (''Heleophryne rosei''), or Table Mountain ghost frog, is a species of frog in the family Heleophrynidae endemic to South Africa. It is a medium-sized species with purple or brown blotches on a pale green background and large ... (''Heleophryne rosei'') Hewitt, 1925 References Heleophrynoidea Amphibian genera Taxa named by Philip Sclater ...
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Endemic Amphibians Of South Africa
Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsewhere. For example, the Cape sugarbird is found exclusively in southwestern South Africa and is therefore said to be ''endemic'' to that particular part of the world. An endemic species can be also be referred to as an ''endemism'' or in scientific literature as an ''endemite''. For example '' Cytisus aeolicus'' is an endemite of the Italian flora. '' Adzharia renschi'' was once believed to be an endemite of the Caucasus, but it was later discovered to be a non-indigenous species from South America belonging to a different genus. The extreme opposite of an endemic species is one with a cosmopolitan distribution, having a global or widespread range. A rare alternative term for a species that is endemic is "precinctive", which applies to ...
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