''Amietia wittei'' (common names: Molo frog, De Witte's river frog) is a species of

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-f ...

in the family

Pyxicephalidae The Pyxicephalidae are a family of frogs currently found in sub-Saharan Africa. However, in the Eocene, the taxon '' Thaumastosaurus'' lived in Europe. Classification The Pyxicephalidae contain two subfamilies, with a total of 12 genera. This f ...

. It is found in Kenya and Tanzania, including

Mount Elgon Mount Elgon is an extinct shield volcano on the border of Uganda and Kenya, north of Kisumu and west of Kitale. The mountain's highest point, named "Wagagai", is located entirely within Uganda.

in the Kenya/Uganda border region. Its type locality is in Molo, Kenya, located near the top of the

Mau Escarpment The Mau Escarpment is a fault scarp running along the western edge of the Great Rift Valley in Kenya. The top of the escarpment reaches approximately 3000 m (10,000 ft) above sea level, and is over 1000 m higher than the floor of the ...

. The

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

''wittei'' honours

Gaston-François de Witte Content in this edit is translated from the existing French Wikipedia article at :fr:Gaston-François de Witte; see its history for attribution. Gaston-François de Witte (12 June 1897, Antwerp – 1 June 1980, Brussels) was a Belgian herpetologis ...

, a Belgian naturalist.

Description

Adult males reach and adult females in snout–urostyle length. The dorsal ground colour is a dark brown, becoming lighter on the flanks and yellowish on to the belly. The dorsolateral folds are black, and so are many of the elongated warts on the back. A row of irregular dark blotches runs from the groin towards the tympanum. Some specimens have a pale (bright green) vertebral stripe. The upper lip is uniformly dark or marbled; a pale (coppery) band above the upper lip extends between the tympanum and eye, touching the eye. The lower lip is marbled.

Habitat and conservation

''Amietia wittei'' is a locally common species inhabiting montane grasslands at elevations of

above sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as ''orthometric heights''. The comb ...

. It is associated with streams and can be found in areas of low-intensity agriculture. It is suffering from some

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 ...

and deterioration caused by expanding human settlements, wood collection, and logging. It occurs in several national parks:

Aberdare Aberdare ( ; cy, Aberdâr) is a town in the Cynon Valley area of Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales, at the confluence of the Rivers Dare (Dâr) and Cynon. Aberdare has a population of 39,550 (mid-2017 estimate). Aberdare is south-west of Merthyr Tyd ...

and

Mount Kenya National Park Mount Kenya National Park was established in 1949 to protect Mount Kenya, the wildlife and surrounding environment, which forms a habitat for wilderness, wild animals, as well as acting as an area for the catchment of water, to supply Kenya's wate ...

s in Kenya,

Mount Elgon National Park Mount Elgon National Park is a national park northeast of Lake Victoria. The park covers an area of and is bisected by the border of Kenya and Uganda. The Ugandan part of the park covers while the Kenyan part covers . The Kenyan part of the p ...

in Kenya/Uganda, and

Kilimanjaro National Park Kilimanjaro National Park is a Tanzanian national park, located south of the equator and in Kilimanjaro Region, Tanzania. The park is located near the region of Moshi. The park includes the whole of Mount Kilimanjaro above the tree line and the ...

in Tanzania.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q2244375 wittei Frogs of Africa Amphibians of Kenya Amphibians of Tanzania Amphibians of Uganda Amphibians described in 1924 Taxa named by Fernand Angel Taxonomy articles created by Polbot