Mertensophryne usambarae

Appearance

Males measure up to 35 mm (1.4 in) and females up to 45 mm (1.8 in) in snout–vent length. The dorsum is brown with some weak marking. The ventral surface is immaculate or with some mottling.

Range and habitat

Mertensophryne usambarae (common name: Usambara forest toad) is a critically endangered species of toad in the family Bufonidae. It is endemic to the foothills of the East Usambara Mountains, northeastern Tanzania.

The known sites are all forest reserves (Kwamgumi, Segoma and Mtai Forest Reserves), but they are not well protected.

Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.

Breeding

Calling males and egg sites define most frog field work. A species known from one ridge is as narrow as it sounds.

Eggs and damp skin make amphibians quick to vanish from a drained wetland or a forest stripped of litter.

In crisis

It is threatened by habitat loss caused by agricultural encroachment, wood extraction, and human settlement. Because of the very small range and threats to the habitat, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) assessed this species as "Critically Endangered" in 2016.

Chytrid fungus, collection, and wet-forest loss are the usual pressures on frogs with a high threat category.

Mertensophryne usambarae is Critically 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 Mertensophryne usambarae, Wikidata item Q2213015. 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.