Kassina arboricola
—
Ivory Coast Running Frog
Kassina are called "Running Frogs" due to their tendency to walk on all four legs rather than hop. The two individuals Kurt and I saw on the first night in Atewa had different enough patterns that we initially thought they might be different species of Kassina. Ghana frog expert Caleb Ofori Boateng confirmed that they were all Kassina arboricola though.
We saw three or four more the following night. The first one was on the ground, and the others were all perched in low vegetation, staring down towards the ground. This seemed to be their standard ambush position, waiting to pounce should some tasty bug happen to meander by.
The frog in the last photo is so intent on watching for passing meals that it doesn't notice the snail that's about to crawl on it.
Online references:
- Kassina arboricola account on AmphibiaWeb
- Kassina arboricola account on Amphibian Species of the World
- Mark-Oliver Rödel, T. Ulmar Grafe, Volker H. W. Rudolf, and Raffael Ernst, 2002. A Review of West African Spotted Kassina, Including a Description of Kassina schioetzi sp. nov. (Amphibia: Anura: Hyperoliidae)
Printed references:
- Schiøtz, A. 1999. Treefrogs of Africa