''Conraua'', known as slippery frogs or giant frogs is a genus of large

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 ...

s from

sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. These include West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the List of sov ...

. ''Conraua'' is the only genus in the family Conrauidae. Alternatively, it may be placed in the family

Petropedetidae The Petropedetidae are a family of frogs containing three genera and 12 species. They are found in sub-Saharan tropical Africa and are sometimes known under common name African torrent frogs. They are inhabitants of the splash-water zone of cle ...

. This genus includes the largest frog of the world, '' Conraua goliath'', which may grow to in snout–vent length and weigh as much as . Four of the seven species in this genus are

threatened Threatened species are any species (including animals, plants and fungi) which are vulnerable to endangerment in the near future. Species that are threatened are sometimes characterised by the population dynamics measure of ''critical depensat ...

Etymology

The generic name ''Conraua'' honours Gustav Conrau, a German trader and labour recruiter in Cameroon who was the collector of the

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several ...

of '' Conraua robusta'', the

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen ...

of the genus.

Species

The recognized species are: *''

Conraua alleni ''Conraua alleni'' or Allen's slippery frog is a species of frogs in the family Conrauidae found in the Ivory Coast, Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, along with a single outlying site in the Sui River Forest Reserve, Ghana. Its natural habitats ...

'' *'' Conraua beccarii'' *'' Conraua crassipes'' *''

Conraua derooi ''Conraua derooi'' is a species of frog in the family Conrauidae. It is found in Togo and Ghana. Common name Togo slippery frog has been coined for this species. Even feared to be extinct, a few populations were found in surveys in 2005–2007, a ...

'' Hulselmans, 1972 *'' Conraua goliath'' (Boulenger, 1906) – goliath frog *'' Conraua robusta''

Nieden Nieden ( Polabian ''Nadam''Schulz, Erwin (2007). ''Der Ortsnamen Detektiv: mittelalterliche Siedlungsnamen im Kreis Uecker-Randow (1121-1591) ; Ursprung, Details, Erklärungen ; mit einer Übersicht zu Ortsnamen ab 1600.'' Schibri-Verlag, p. 29. ...

, 1908 – Cameroon slippery frog *'' Conraua sagyimase'' Neira-Salamea, Ofori-Boateng, Kouamé,

Blackburn Blackburn () is an industrial town and the administrative centre of the Blackburn with Darwen borough in Lancashire, England. The town is north of the West Pennine Moors on the southern edge of the Ribble Valley, east of Preston and north-n ...

, Segniagbeto, Hillers, Barej, Leaché & Rödel, 2021 ''

Nota bene (, or ; plural form ) is a Latin phrase meaning "note well". It is often abbreviated as NB, n.b., or with the ligature and first appeared in English writing . In Modern English, it is used, particularly in legal papers, to draw the atten ...

'': A

binomial authority In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

in parentheses indicates that the species was originally described in a genus other than ''Conraua''.

References

External links

* Amphibians of Sub-Saharan Africa Amphibian genera Taxa named by Fritz Nieden {{ranoidea-stub