Ranger's Toad

About the Ranger's Toad

The raucous toad (Sclerophrys capensis), also known as Ranger's toad, is a species of toad from Southern Africa. Sclerophrys capensis is a member of the family Bufonidae. This species was described as Bufo regularis rangeri, in 1935, by John Hewitt of the Albany Museum, Grahamstown, from collections made by naturalist Gordon A. Ranger at his farm "Gleniffer" 3 km E of Kei Road, in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. Among several other forms described from these collections was the eastern leopard toad, Sclerophrys pardalis, which Ranger distinguished from the raucous toad on behaviour and calls (according to his nephew, Mr Gary Ranger, "Gleniffer" was subdivided in the late 1930s and the portions renamed, including "Hillside" and "Rockdale", where there is a monument to the older Mr Ranger). Hewitt considered the raucous toad, along with most other large toads of Southern Africa, as subspecies of the widespread African toad Bufo regularis (a species which is now considered absent from Southern Africa, predominantly occurring in subsaharan Africa north of the equator). In 1964, Poynton raised Bufo rangeri of Hewitt, 1935 to full species status, distinguishing it... Wikipedia →