Togo Slippery Frog

general

This species includes all records of Conraua alleni from eastern Ghana and Togo (Rödel and Schiøtz 2004).

African Amphibians

general

The specific epithet derooi is a tribute to the ornithologist Antoon De Roo, a member of the expedition that discovered this species (Hulselmans 1972).

African Amphibians

morphology

Clarke (1981) provides an extensive treatment of the osteology of Conraua in relation to other “ranine” genera and species. However, while he discusses C. alleni , C. beccarii , C. crassipes , and C. goliath as well as members of several other genera, (Clarke 1981), his analysis does not include material from C. derooi , potentially limiting the extent to which his conclusions for Conraua apply to this species.

African Amphibians

morphology

The head is as wide (35.6 mm) as it is long (35.4 mm), and the horizontal diameter of the orbit (10.1 mm) is barely greater than the length of the snout (9.6 mm). The nostrils are closer to the tip of the snout than to the eye, and the distance between the nostrils (5.9 mm) is slightly less than the interorbital distance (6.9 mm). The tongue is widely indented, and the vomerine teeth are present but poorly developed. The loreal region is rather oblique, the canthus rostralis is rounded, the tympanum is invisible externally, and the postoccipital and suprascapulary regions are significantly swollen. A dermal fold extends from the eye to the shoulder, where it is continued by a few fine warts. The front legs bear very fine granular folds. Finger 1 is almost 1.5 phalanges shorter than finger 2, which is in turn 1.5 phalanges shorter than finger 3. Finger 3 is the longest, and has a distinct external dermal fringe. Finally, finger 4 is one phalanx shorter than finger 3. All of the fingers have a large subarticular tubercle except for finger 4, which has two. The internal metacarpal tubercle is rather large but not very prominent. The external metacarpal tubercle is narrower, and the e

African Amphibians