Osgood's Ethiopian toad (''Altiphrynoides osgoodi'' formerly known as ''Spinophrynoides osgoodi'') is a possibly extinct species of

toad Toad is a common name for certain frogs, especially of the family Bufonidae, that are characterized by dry, leathery skin, short legs, and large bumps covering the parotoid glands. A distinction between frogs and toads is not made in scientif ...

in the family

Bufonidae {{Cat main, Toad This category contains both species commonly called toads, and the true toads from the family Bufonidae {{Cat main, Toad This category contains both species commonly called toads, and the true toads from the family Bufonidae {{Cat m ...

endemic 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 elsew ...

to the mountains of south-central

Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...

. It was named for the American biologist

Wilfred Hudson Osgood Wilfred Hudson Osgood (December 8, 1875 – June 20, 1947) was an American zoologist. Biography Osgood was born in Rochester, New Hampshire, the oldest child of a family of watchmakers. The family moved to California in 1888 and he went to study ...

who carried out fieldwork in Ethiopia for the

Field Museum The Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH), also known as The Field Museum, is a natural history museum in Chicago, Illinois, and is one of the largest such museums in the world. The museum is popular for the size and quality of its educational ...

in 1926–27. He collected the original specimens of Osgood's Ethiopian toad and three other endemic species of

anuran A frog is any member of a diverse and largely carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order Anura (ανοὐρά, literally ''without tail'' in Ancient Greek). The oldest fossil "proto-frog" ''Triadobatrachus'' ...

Distribution

The toad was common in the

Bale Mountains National Park Bale Mountains National Park (BMNP) is a national park in Ethiopia. The park encompasses an area of approximately in the Bale Mountains and Sanetti Plateau of the Ethiopian Highlands. The park's Afromontane habitats have one of the highest incid ...

and other montane environments east of the

Great Rift Valley The Great Rift Valley is a series of contiguous geographic trenches, approximately in total length, that runs from Lebanon in Asia to Mozambique in Southeast Africa. While the name continues in some usages, it is rarely used in geology as it i ...

, and was also said to be present in an isolated population in the Gughe Mountains, although the existence of this population was based on a single specimen which may have been misidentified. If the putative population in the Gughe mountains is not included then this toad's total range covered an area of .

Habitat and ecology

Osgood's Ethiopian toad is mainly a species of tropical

montane forest Montane ecosystems are found on the slopes of mountains. The alpine climate in these regions strongly affects the ecosystem because temperatures fall as elevation increases, causing the ecosystem to stratify. This stratification is a crucial f ...

, possibly extending marginally into open

moorland Moorland or moor is a type of habitat found in upland areas in temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands and montane grasslands and shrublands biomes, characterised by low-growing vegetation on acidic soils. Moorland, nowadays, generally ...

. There is an observation of these toads breeding in a small pool, which was probably temporary, within a grassy glade surrounded by ''

Hypericum ''Hypericum'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Hypericaceae (formerly considered a subfamily of Clusiaceae). The genus has a nearly worldwide distribution, missing only from tropical lowlands, deserts and polar regions. Many ''Hype ...

woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the ''plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (see ...

during April. Long strings of eggs were laid from which the

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 hatched.

Conservation

The toad is rare; the last specimen was observed 2003, despite extensive survey work in 2009. If it is still extant, it probably numbers no more than 50 individuals. It is threatened by

habitat loss Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss and habitat reduction) is the process by which a natural habitat becomes incapable of supporting its native species. The organisms that previously inhabited the site are displaced or dead, thereby ...

by subsistence exploitation of the forests.

Chytrid Chytridiomycota are a division of zoosporic organisms in the kingdom Fungi, informally known as chytrids. The name is derived from the Ancient Greek ('), meaning "little pot", describing the structure containing unreleased zoöspores. Chytrid ...

fungus is very prevalent in amphibians in highland Ethiopia although there is no data on its impact on this species.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q2212746 osgoodi Amphibians of Ethiopia Endemic fauna of Ethiopia Bale Mountains Fauna of the Ethiopian Highlands Critically endangered fauna of Africa Amphibians described in 1932 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot