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Sahara frog

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Sahara frog
A green frog with black spots and a white underside facing the right
Adult in El Haouaria, Tunisia
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Amphibia
Order: Anura
Family: Ranidae
Genus: Pelophylax
Species:
P. saharicus
Binomial name
Pelophylax saharicus
(Boulenger, 1913)
Synonyms[2]
List
  • Rana esculenta var. latastei Camerano, 1882 "1881" (preoccupied)
  • Rana esculenta var. latastii (Camerano, 1882 "1881") Boulenger, 1883 (lapsus calami)
  • Rana esculenta saharica Boulenger, 1913
  • Rana ridibunda saharica (Boulenger, 1913) Terentjev, 1927
  • Rana zavattarii Scortecci, 1936
  • Rana ridibunda riodeoroi Salvador and Peris, 1975
  • Rana (Rana) saharica (Boulenger, 1913) Dubois, 1987 "1986"
  • Rana (Pelophylax) saharica (Boulenger, 1913) Dubois, 1992
  • Hylarana saharica (Boulenger, 1913) Chen, Murphy, Lathrop, Ngo, Orlov, Ho, and Somorjai, 2005

The Sahara frog (Pelophylax saharicus) is a species of frog in the family Ranidae. It is native to Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Spanish North Africa (Ceuta and Melilla), and Western Sahara; it has also been introduced to Gran Canaria. In French it is called grenouille verte d'Afrique du Nord, and in Spanish it is known as rana verde norteafricana.[1]

Taxonomy and evolution

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History of naming

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During an expedition to the Sahara Desert in 1912, German ornithologist Ernst Hartert collected several specimens of the Sahara frog at multiple sites in Algeria, which he addressed as "the lake at El-Golea" and "the ditches of the Tidikelt oases called Igosten and In-Salah". The following year, German-British zoologist George Albert Boulenger wrote a description of these specimens for Hartert. Believing they represent a variant of the edible frog (which had the scientific name Rana esculenta at the time), he gave this amphibian the scientific name Rana esculenta saharica.[3] In a 1927 publication, Russian zoologist Pavel Viktorovich Terentjev treated the Sahara frog as a form of the marsh frog (known as Rana ridibunda at the time) under the name Rana ridibunda saharica instead.[4] By 1992, the Sahara frog was recognised as a separate species from other frogs and referred to as Rana saharica.[5]

Many species that were once included in the genus Rana were moved to separate genera at the beginning of the 21st century, when detailed molecular phylogenetic data made a distinction among the species more clear. In 1992, French zoologist Alain Dubois divided the genus Rana into 33 subgenera, with the Sahara frog being placed in the subgenus Pelophylax under the name Rana (Pelophylax) saharica.[5] A study published in 2005 further divided the species placed in the genus Rana at the time into several different genera, with those of the subgenus Pelophylax being assigned to the genus Hylarana, thus the Sahara frog was considered to be part of this genus under the name Hylarana saharica.[6] In 2006, another publication on amphibian taxonomy elevated the rank of Pelophylax from subgenus to genus, a revision which is further supported by a study published the following year, so the scientific name of the Sahara frog was recombined once again into Pelophylax saharicus.[7][8]

In addition, some Sahara frog specimens were formerly thought to represent distinct, separate forms. In 1882, Italian herpetologist Lorenzo Camerano assigned the name Rana esculenta var. latastei to the Sahara frog.[9] Though this predates Boulenger's establishment of Rana esculenta saharica by 31 years, the name Rana latastei is preoccupied by a different species of frog that was named in 1879 and thus cannot be used for the Sahara frog.[10] In 1936, Italian herpetologist Giuseppe Scortecci erected a species named Rana zavattarii based on several specimens found in Libya, which would then be declared a junior synonym of Rana ridibunda saharica in 1973.[11][12] The specimens studied by Scortecci were claimed to be missing in 1994, but a 2014 publication reported that some were rediscovered in the Milan Natural History Museum.[10][13] The name Rana ridibunda riodeoroi was established in 1975 for a type of frog found in the Western Sahara which was initially thought to be a subspecies of the marsh frog.[14] However, it was lumped with the Sahara frog instead in 1996.[15]

Evolution

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The Sahara frog belongs to the genus Pelophylax, which is widely distributed across Eurasia, and genetic analysis has revealed that it is more closely related to the European members of this genus than to any of the east Asian species. In particular, its closest living relative is the Perez's frog (P. perezi) found on the Iberian Peninsula and in southern France. A study published in 2024 found that the lineages of these two species diverged approximately either 16 million years ago (during the end of the Burdigalian age of the Miocene) or 5.3 million years ago (during the Zanclean age of the Pliocene). The former time estimate coincides with the Betic Crisis (when sea level rise and saline lakes fragmented the Iberian Peninsula), while the latter coincides with the end of the Messinian salinity crisis (when the Mediterranean Sea dried up), suggesting that one of these events triggered the divergence of the two lineages. The following cladogram shows the position of the Sahara frog among its closest living relatives according to Dufresnes et al. (2024):[16]

Pelophylax
P. ridibundus
⊞Show taxa
⊟
marsh frogs

P. cretensis

P. epeiroticus

pool frogs
Western Palearctic

Description

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The Sahara frog is a large species, an exceptional female from Morocco having a snout-to-vent length of 104.5 mm (4.1 in). It is sometimes confused with Perez's frog (Pelophylax perezi), and the published description may be partially of that species. The head is as wide as it is long, the snout is oval and the eyes have horizontal pupils. Males have a pair of vocal sacs on the throat. A ridge connects the nostrils and upper eyelids and continues to the groin, separating the back from the flanks. The hind feet are webbed. The colour is variable, being reported as green, brown or mixed, sometimes with darker spots. Some frogs have a yellowish or greenish line along the spine. The legs are always spotted or barred.[17]

Distribution and habitat

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The Sahara frog is native to North Africa where its range includes Western Sahara, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. It is aquatic and found in and near streams, oasis pools, irrigation canals, lakes, and other water bodies.[1]

Status

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The Sahara frog is abundant where a suitable wetland habitat is present. Though its population has remained steady, over-exploitation and pollution of water sources could threaten the species in the future. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has assessed its conservation status as being of "least concern".[1]

A population was discovered in 2021 in the Etang de Berre wetland in Southern France, spreading to several localities, reproducing and present since 2011 at least, and is considered there an invasive species.[18]

References

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  1. 1 2 3 4 David Donaire-Barroso, Iñigo Martínez-Solano, Alfredo Salvador, Mario García-París, Ernesto Recuero Gil, Tahar Slimani , El Hassan El Mouden, Philippe Geniez, Tahar Slimani, Ulrich Joger, Sherif Baha El Din (2009). "Pelophylax saharicus". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2009 e.T58707A11826925. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2009.RLTS.T58707A11826925.en. Retrieved 12 November 2021.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  2. ↑ Frost, Darrel R. (2015). "Pelophylax saharicus (Boulenger, 1913)". Amphibian Species of the World: an Online Reference. Version 6.0. American Museum of Natural History. Retrieved 27 August 2026.
  3. ↑ Hartert, Ernst (1913). "Expedition to the Central Western Sahara V. Reptiles and amphibians". Novitates Zoologicae. 20: 76–84. ISSN 0950-7655.
  4. ↑ Terentjev, Pavel Viktorovich (1927). "Miscellanea herpeto-batrachologica. 6. Bemerkungen uber die Systematik und Verbreitung der grünen Frösche". Zoologischer Anzeiger. 74: 82–88.
  5. 1 2 Dubois, Alain (1992). "Notes sur la classification des Ranidae (Amphibiens, Anoures)". Bulletin mensuel de la Société linnéenne de Lyon (in French). 61 (10): 305–352. doi:10.3406/linly.1992.11011. ISSN 0366-1326.
  6. ↑ Chen, Liqiao; Murphy, Robert W.; Lathrop, Amy; Ngo, Andre; Orlov, Nikolai L.; Ho, Cuc Thu; Somorjai, Ildiko L. M. (2005). "Taxonomic chaos in Asian ranid frogs: an initial phylogenetic resolution". Herpetological Journal. 15 (4): 231–243. ISSN 0268-0130.
  7. ↑ Frost, Darrel R.; Grant, Taran; Faivovich, JuliáN; Bain, Raoul H.; Haas, Alexander; Haddad, CéLio F.B.; De Sá, Rafael O.; Channing, Alan; Wilkinson, Mark; Donnellan, Stephen C.; Raxworthy, Christopher J.; Campbell, Jonathan A.; Blotto, Boris L.; Moler, Paul; Drewes, Robert C. (2006). "The Amphibian Tree of Life". Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. 297: 1–291. doi:10.1206/0003-0090(2006)297[0001:TATOL]2.0.CO;2. ISSN 0003-0090.
  8. ↑ Che, Jing; Pang, Junfeng; Zhao, Hui; Wu, Guan-fu; Zhao, Er-mi; Zhang, Ya-ping (2007). "Phylogeny of Raninae (Anura: Ranidae) inferred from mitochondrial and nuclear sequences". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 43 (1): 1–13. Bibcode:2007MolPE..43....1C. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2006.11.032. ISSN 1055-7903. PMID 17300963.
  9. ↑ Camerano, Lorenzo (1881). "Recherches sur les variations de la Rana esculenta et du Bufo viridis dans le Bassin de la Méditerranée". Comptes Rendus de l'Association Française pour l'Avancement des Sciences (in French). 10: 680–690.
  10. 1 2 Dubois, Alain; Ohler, Annemarie (1994). "Frogs of the subgenus Pelophylax (Amphibia, Anura, genus Rana): a catalogue of available and valid scientific names, with comments on name bearing types, complete synonymies, proposed common names, and maps showing all type localities". Zoologica Poloniae. 39: 139–204.
  11. ↑ Scortecci, Giuseppe (1936). "Gli anfibi della Tripolitania". Atti della Societa Italiana di Scienze Naturali e del Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Milano (in Italian). 75: 129–226. ISSN 0037-8844.
  12. ↑ Eiselt, J.; Schmidtler, J.F. (1973). "Froschlurche aus dem Iran unter Berücksichtigung ausseriranischer Poplationsgruppen". Annalen des Naturhistorischen Museums in Wien. 77: 181–243.
  13. ↑ Blackburn, David C.; Scali, Stefano (2014). "An Annotated Catalog of the Type Specimens of Amphibia in the Collection of the Museo Civico Di Storia Naturale, Milan, Italy". Herpetological Monographs. 28 (1): 24–45. doi:10.1655/HERPETOLOGICA-D-13-00008. ISSN 0733-1347.
  14. ↑ Peris, Salvador (1975). "Contribucion al estudio de la fauna herpetologica del Río de Oro". Boletín de la Estación Central de Ecología. 4 (8): 49–60.
  15. ↑ Salvador, Alfredo (1996). "Amphibians of northwest Africa". Smithsonian Herpetological Information Service. 109: 1–43.
  16. ↑ Dufresnes, Christophe; Monod‐Broca, Benjamin; Bellati, Adriana; Canestrelli, Daniele; Ambu, Johanna; Wielstra, Ben; Dubey, Sylvain; Crochet, Pierre‐André; Denoël, Mathieu; Jablonski, Daniel (2024). "Piecing the barcoding puzzle of Palearctic water frogs ( Pelophylax ) sheds light on amphibian biogeography and global invasions". Global Change Biology. 30 (3). doi:10.1111/gcb.17180. hdl:2067/52904. ISSN 1354-1013.
  17. ↑ "Pelophylax saharicus". AmphibiaWeb. Retrieved 4 November 2016.
  18. ↑ Doniol-Valcroze, P., Mazepa, G., Grimal, F., Sourrouille, P., Perrin, N., Litvinchuk, S. N. & Crochet, P.-A (2021). "Discovery of a Pelophylax saharicus (Anura, Ranidae) population in Southern France: a new potentially invasive species of water frogs in Europe". Amphibia-Reptilia. XX: 1–16.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
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