Krefft's warty frog (''Callulina kreffti''), or Krefft's secret frog, is a species of frog in the family

Brevicipitidae Brevicipitidae or rain frogs is a small family of frogs found in eastern and southern Africa. As of 2020 contains 37 species in 5 genera. eb application 2013. Berkeley, CaliforniaBrevicipitidae AmphibiaWeb, available at http://amphibiaweb.org/. ...

. It is found in the

Eastern Arc Mountains The Eastern Arc Mountains is a chain of mountains found in Kenya and Tanzania. The chain runs from northeast to southwest, with the Taita Hills being in Kenya and the other ranges being in Tanzania. They are delimited on the southwest by the fau ...

in Tanzania and in southern Kenya. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests, subtropical or tropical moist montane forests, rural gardens, and heavily degraded former forest. It is threatened by habitat loss.

Description

Krefft's warty frog is a sturdy frog with a short snout, visible

tympani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a membrane called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally ...

behind the eyes and short legs. It can grow to a length of . The fingers and toes are short with wide toe pads. The dorsal surface is glandular and densely covered with small warts and the general colour is greyish-brown, rusty brown or greyish black. The underside is paler. This species could be confused with ''

Breviceps mossambicus The Mozambique rain frog (''Breviceps mossambicus''), also known as the flat-faced frog, is a species of frog in the family Brevicipitidae. It is found in Botswana, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eswatini, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Tan ...

'' but that species lacks the large, square-ended toe pads which help ''Callulina kreffti'' to clamber about in trees.

Distribution and habitat

Krefft's warty frog is endemic to both lowland and upland regions of southern Kenya and northern and eastern Tanzania. In Kenya it is restricted to the Taita Hills and Shimba Hills while in Tanzania it is found in the Pare Mountains, the Usambara Mountains, the

Uluguru Mountains The Uluguru mountains are a mountain range in eastern Tanzania, named after the Luguru tribe. The main portion of the Uluguru mountains is a ridge running roughly north-south and rising to altitude at its highest point. On the main Uluguru rang ...

, the

Nguru Mountains The Nguru Mountains are a mountain range in Morogoro Region, Tanzania, Africa. The Nguru Mountains are part of the Eastern Arc Mountains. The mountains are predominantly covered with rainforest, home to 83 species of birds (Romdal 2001) and Africa ...

, the Ukaguru Mountains and the Udzungwa Mountains. It occurs at heights ranging from above sea level. It lives among leaf litter in forests, hiding under rocks and fallen logs or scrambling about in low vegetation, but can also be found in cleared areas near the edge of forests. It is sometimes found in the leaf axils of

banana A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa''. In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be called "plantains", distinguis ...

plants.

Status

Krefft's warty frog seems to be more resilient to habitat degradation than some other species of frog and is listed as being of " Least Concern" in the

IUCN Red List of Threatened Species The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biologi ...

. The main threat it faces is from the ongoing clearing of its forest home for agriculture and in the Usambaras Mountains, from illegal gold mining activities.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q2241301 Callulina Amphibians described in 1911 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot