Assessing water conditions for Heleophryne rosei tadpoles and the conservation relevance

Abstract

Southern Africa has a rich assemblage of anuran amphibians (South Africa has 12 families). Of these, one entire family is endemic to the southern African region (Poynton 1964): the ghost frog family, Heleophrynidae. These torrent-adapted species live in and around fast-flowing montane streams. Adults are cryptic, hiding in crevices and emerging at night, while tadpoles are relatively easy to find in streams and easily identified by their large, specially adapted oral suckers used for grazing on algae-covered rocks (Boycott 2004). The two genera of the ghost frog family contain seven species, one in the genus Hadromophryne (Natal cascade frog) and six in the genus Heleophryne (ghost frogs); the latter is confined to the Cape Fold Mountains (Channing, Boycott & Van Hensbergen 1988) across south-west South Africa’s winter rainfall region (Colville et al. 2014). The Table Mountain Ghost Frog, Heleophryne rosei, is confined to the Table Mountain massif (Boycott & de Villiers 1986).