A New Small Phrynobatrachus (Amphibia: Anura: Phrynobatrachidae) From Southern Cameroon

We describe a new small Phrynobatrachus species from southern Cameroon. The new species exhibits a combination ofunique morphological characters and a distinctive colour pattern consisting of a black lateral face mask, a black throat inmales, a white throat with uniform black lower mandibles in females and a white belly in both sexes. Morphologically itis characterized by small size, absence of an eyelid cornicle, presence of black spines on anterior part of vocal sac in males,spines on flanks, presence of discs on toe and finger tips, distinct webbing, absence of nuptial pads on male thumbs andscapular ridges converging in a straight line. Analysis of mitochondrial 16S rRNA revealed that the new species differsfrom 34 other West and Central African species of the genus by a minimum distance of 4.5% and is most similar to several Phrynobatrachus species which are almost all endemic to the Cameroon volcanic line or parts of it, i.e. P. chukuchuku (4.9%), P. werneri (5.1%), P. steindachneri (5.2%), P. schioetzi (5.6%), P. batesii (5.9%), P. cricogaster (5.5%), P. danko (6.1%), and P. manengoubensis (6.1%), respectively. The new species is most similar to P. batesii, which was describedfrom forests close to the type locality of the new species. Morphologically the new species differs from P. batesii by muchsmaller size ( vs. 25-31 mm), shape of scapular ridges, belly colour, shorter shanks, absence of nuptial pads and presence of gular spines in breeding males.