by David Blackburn
It might seem suprising, but frogs appear
in the daily lives of people from all over
the world—and especially Cameroon.
In Central Africa, and especially Cameroon,
there are many frog species that are eaten
and a few that are used in traditional medicine.
The largest frog in the world is Conraua
goliath. An adult can reach lengths
of one foot from snout to butt and can weight
more than a new-born baby! This species,
as well as its slightly smaller cousin,
Conraua robusta, are eaten in many
places in southern and western Cameroon
(Lawson 1993; Herrmann et al. 2005).
Tasty Frogs
Another large species that is eaten in Cameroon
is the Hairy Frog, Trichobatrachus robustus.
Males of this species are covered with what
appears to be hair!. (It is actually just
very, very thin extensions of skin, as if
you pricked the skin with a needle and then
drew out a very thin piece of skin.) As
males live in cool streams and as these
“hairs” have many blood vessels,
their strange appearance is believed to
be an adaptation for cutaneous respiration
(in other words, they have more surface
area and can more easily breath through
their skin).
To make these frogs even stranger, females
are not hairy and appear to live in the
forests surrounding the streams throughout
most of the year. Hairy Frogs have sharp
claws on their feet and can kick and scratch
when captured. For this reason, people that
hunt this species have developed strategies
for catching them that range from special
large spears to shotguns. In some regions
of Cameroon, Hairy Frogs are hunted, slowly
dried over a fire, and then given to school
children when they return home from the
government schools on holidays.
Other smaller species of frog are also
eaten. The Fulbe of Mt. Manengouba catch
Kassina maculata in the grass surrounding
the mountain’s crater lakes. It is
really incredible how many frogs of this
species can be found in this place! I have
been told that women will go out with baskets,
peal back bunches of grass, and catch many
of these frogs during the dry seasons. Apparently
the frogs are skewered and roasted like
a shiskabob! The aquatic Xenopus amieti,
also from Mt. Manengouba, is also collected
and eaten (Kobel et al. 1980; pers. obs.).
While working in the area of Ekoneman Awa
on the Nigerian border, I was told that
local people collect Scotobleps gabonicus,
of which there are many in and near
the streams that meander through the local
cocoa plantations.
Amazingly, tadpoles are also eaten in some
areas. Some people in southwestern Cameroon
have been reported to eat tadpoles of the
genus Leptodactylodon. These frogs
are some of the strangest in Cameroon, and
very little is known about them.
The tadpoles of many species can be large
and have very meaty tails, so maybe it should
not be a great surprise that they’re
eaten. I have also heard from Cameroonians
hailing from near Bamenda in the Northwest
Province that tadpoles are collected from
small pools. In the Mangkong language of
the people near Bamenda, these are called
njahnjahmoto
and are sold dried at markets.
Frogs as
Medicine
Lastly, at least one Cameroonian
species is used as medicine. The large forest
toad Bufo superciliaris is captured
and carefully killed and dried so as not
to damage the skeleton. The bones are then
crushed and used in traditional medicine
(Lawson 1993). Other people in Central Africa
also use frogs for magical purposes. This
is the case with the treefrog Leptopelis
notatus in the Chaillu Massif of Gabon.
This species is cooked and the ashes collected.
The ashes are rubbed into small incisions
made in a person's hands that the person
is magically endowed with “sticky
hands” like a tree frog (Pauwels et
al. 2003). This magical power was once used
to catch spears during battles, but it is
now used by goalies in soccer games! |
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The
frog Cardioglossa melanogaster
is only known from the
tops of several mountains in
Cameroon and neighboring Nigeria.
Frogs
Frogs are amphibians that have
four limbs but no tail. Toads
are a type of frog just like
a square is a special kind of
rectangle. By one recent count,
there are more than 5,300 species
of frogs. This is close to the
number of species of mammals
that are alive today.
When
you think of mammals, you might
think of whales, horses, bats,
and porcupines, which all seem
very diverse to our eye. Most
frogs look pretty similar. However,
frogs exhibit some of the greatest
reproductive diversity in land-dwelling
vertebrates. And some give birth
to very tiny baby frogs. Some
have tadpoles that specialize
in eating other tadpoles.
There
are some species that only breed
in the small amount of water
in bromeliad plants that are
found up in trees in the forest;
female frogs have to come back
to the plants to feed the tadpoles
unfertilized eggs because there’s
not much else to eat up there!
Many
species of frogs that carry
their eggs around with them
either wrapped around their
legs, stuck to their back, or
even in pockets in the skin
of the back. In one species,
the males carry the tadpoles
around in his vocal sacs until
they metamorphose and in another,
unfortunately now extinct, in
which the female swallowed the
eggs and the tadpoles went through
metamorphosis in her stomach!
A
male toad of the species Werneria
tandyi. This species is
known only from Mt. Manengouba
and the nearby Rumpi Hills.
There are six species of this
genus of toads and five are
found in Cameroon. The sixth
species is found on Mt. Iboundji
in neighboring Gabon.
Toads
All true toads are members of
a single family of frogs. This
family is called the Bufonidae
and is found throughout the
world in just about every habitat
imaginable. The toads most familiar
to us in the United States are
big, brown, warty guys that
are generally slow moving and
produce thousands of eggs. But
not all toads are like this!
Some live only in trees. Some
produce only a few, large eggs
rather than the thousands of
small eggs. Some toads even
give birth to very tiny baby
toads!
People
often fear toads because they
are poisonous. It is true that
many toads can secrete a noxious
substance. However, there is absolutely
no reason to kill a toad. As long
as you aren't sticking toads in
your mouth, toads are not going
to do anyone any harm! |
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Leptopelis
aubryi, a treefrog, from the lowland
forests of Mangombe
Forest Reserve, Littoral Province, Cameroon.
A common species that
lays eggs buried in nests in the mud; tadpoles
hatch out
and wriggle to nearby pools.
Photo © D.C. Blackburn
Herrmann, H.-W., W. Böhme, P.A. Herrmann,
M. Plath, A. Schmitz, and M. Solbach. 2005.
African biodiversity hotspots: the amphibians
of Mt. Nlonako, Cameroon. Salamandra
41: 61-81.
Lawson, D.P. 1993. The reptiles and amphibians
of the Korup National Park Project, Cameroon.
Herpetological Natural History
1: 27-90.
Pauwels, O.S.G., M.-O. Rödel, and
A.K. Toham. 2003. Leptopelis notatus
(Anura: Hyperoliidae) in the Massif du Chaillu,
Gabon: from ethnic wars to soccer. Hamadryad
27: 271-273.
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