AMPHIBIANS OF SOUTHEASTERN TANZANIA, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO STEPHOPAEDES AND MERTENSOPHRYNE (BUFONIDAE) ). C. POYNTON 1 Abstract. Records are given of 47 species of anu-rans collected in southeastern Tanzania. Stepho-paedes and Mertensophryne are discussed at length; the two genera are provisionally regarded as being distinct on the grounds of differences in adult mor-phology, and diagnoses are given. Tanzanian material of Stephopaedes is described as a species distinct from the Zimbabwean S. anotis. Mertensophryne m. mi-cranotis and M . m. rondoensis are found to be in-separable, and schmidti Grandison is excluded from this genus. Stephopaedes and Mertensophryne are apparently restricted to eastern African lowland for-est and transitional lowland-Afromontane forest, now very fragmented. Most eastern Tanzanian species are assignable to an East African lowlands fauna, with characteristically enormous ranges. A set of wide-spread species with ranges centered more to the west is represented in more upland areas. There are rel-atively few endemic species. INTRODUCTION Southeastern Tanzania is here taken to be the region of Tanzania south of the Great Ruaha and Rufiji Rivers, and east of the highlands as demarcated by the 1,000 m contour. This area for the most part consists of the extensive Southeast Plateau, and a Coastal Hill Region (Berry, 1971). Alluvial lowlands occur along most of the northern limit. Rainfall in the region is in excess of 800 mm per annum (Berry, 1971), with the result that it is "a land closely covered, the cover varying from miombo woodland to light scrub" (Moffett, 1958: 220). The vegetation is characterized as "East African coastal mosaic" and "drier 1 Department of Biology, University of Natal, Dur-ban 4001, South Africa. Zambezian miombo woodland" in the UNESCO/AETFAT/UNSO vegetation map (White, 1983). No portion of the Af-romontane Region (sensu White, 1978) is included. The area has been visited by several col-lectors, starting with Livingstone's expe-ditions of the 1860s, and followed notably by Loveridge, Ionides, and Rees. The ma-terial has been deposited mainly in the Museum of Comparative Zoology and the British Museum (Natural History). Much of this material was reviewed briefly by Poynton (1977), but subsequent taxonomic work in eastern and, especially, southern Africa (covered by Poynton and Broadley, 1985a, 1985b, 1987, 1988) calls for a more thorough review. In particular, southeast-ern Tanzania is the only region in Africa where small-sized bufonids currently as-signed to Mertensophryne and Stepho-paedes are now known to be sympatric. The taxonomy of these bufonids has be-come confused (Poynton and Broadley, 1988), making a detailed discussion ap-propriate in this paper. As the area reviewed here includes the Selous Game Reserve, it is hoped that this paper will stimulate further study of the amphibian fauna of this still rather poorly investigated region. The paper is based on a reexamination of material in the Muse-um of Comparative Zoology and the Brit-ish Museum (Natural History). The acro-nyms MCZ and BM are used in the text. Other acronvms used are: FMNH, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago; Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., 152(8): 451-473, October, 1991 451
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