Endangered
Knysna banana frog
Afrixalus knysnae
The Knysna banana frog is a frog in the family Hyperoliidae endemic to South Africa.
Appearance
The Knysna banana frog has a creamy and yellow color with lateral brown stripes.
Range and habitat
Its natural habitats are temperate forests, Mediterranean-type shrubby vegetation, freshwater marshes, intermittent freshwater marshes, arable land, water storage areas, and ponds. It is threatened by habitat loss. To the extent of scientists knowledge we know that the occurrence rate is 1,756 km².
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet
Adults of the species forage at night, when they pick insects from aquatic vegetation. Tadpoles eat vegetation within the body of water where they hatch.
In crisis
As of 2026, the population appears to be stable. Even so, the three subpopulations of this species are severely fragmented. The subpopulation occurring near George, South Africa is expected to contain more than half of the remaining individuals of the species.
An additional subpopulation at Covie, South Africa was rediscovered in 2011 after suspicions it had gone extinct. The main threat is habitat loss due to urban and recreational development, afforestation, invasive vegetation, agricultural expansion and chemical pollution.
Chytrid fungus, collection, and wet-forest loss are the usual pressures on frogs with a high threat category.
Knysna banana frog is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Knysna banana frog, Wikidata item Q1943010. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
