(Photo taken by Vincent Carruthers)

Arthroleptella ngongoniensis - The Mist Belt Chirping Frog (Bishop and Passmore, 1993)

Chirping frogs are a small group of frogs belonging to the genus Arthroleptella. The adults are small frogs and they have adapted to a terrestrial life style with no free-swimming tadpole stage. They lay a small number of eggs (11 -14 in the case of A. ngongoniensis) among damp vegetation or in shallow nests in wet mud. The eggs are surprisingly large relative to the size of the frog and each is surrounded by an individual jelly capsule. The tadpoles emerge from the capsule and squirm around on the wet mud or damp vegetation. They do not feed and soon transform into minute froglets less than 5 mm long.

A. ngongoniensis occurs in a very limited distribution in the 'Ngongoni mist belt region of the Natal highlands in South Africa. As it is such a small animal and very secretive and quiet it has easily been overlooked by past herpetologists. I was lucky enough to discover this frog during several field trips to this region by hearing its quiet call which was quite unlike any other frog or cricket call that I had heard before. The adult males are very small - a large one measures in at 19 mm, while a large female may reach a length of 23 mm!  For more information on this species and other frogs in the world have a look at the AmphibiaWeb page.

For further information on frogs of southern African have a look in the Atlas and Red Data Book of the Frogs of South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland (by L.R. Minter, M. Burger, J.A. Harrison, H.H. Braack, P.J. Bishop and D.Kloepfer (eds), (2004). Volume 9 SI/MAB Series. Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., ISBN 1 86812 517 3) or email James Harrison who took over from me as Coordinator of the Southern African Frog Atlas Project that I initiated in 1995.