Amietia quecketti

Amietia quecketti (Boulenger, 1895) is a Southern African river frog known from South Africa, Lesotho, and southwards from Nyanga, Zimbabwe. This species is found in the highlands of southern and eastern Lesotho to above 2,000 m asl, in Natal in the permanent mountain streams originating in the Drakensberg Escarpment and with a wide distribution throughout South Africa, except in the dry west of the country. As a high-altitude stream breeder the species is vulnerable to infection by the fungus Batrachochytrium. Amietia, or River Frogs, were named after the Swiss herpetologist Jean-Louis Amiet, and the species honours John Frederick Whitlie Quekett (sic), Curator of the Durban Museum at Boulenger's time, the misspelling with a 'c' coming from Boulenger. The genus currently consists of 17 species (Channing & Baptista, 2013; Frost, 2013).

River Frogs or Amietia spp all have streamlined bodies with pointed noses and live close to water. They have well-developed hind legs and when disturbed rapidly leap into the water, where they may remain submerged for long periods. They generally have calls consisting of croaks and clicks, and call singly or in groups. Their eggs are laid individually in slow-moving to static water. They are adaptable species and may be found in savanna, on forest fringes, in grasslands, and in the garden ponds of suburbia. The taxonomy of this genus has been problematic and some clarity has been achieved by A. Channing and N. Baptista in their 2013 work:

A study combining DNA sequences of the mitochondrial 16S rRNA gene, advertisement calls and morphology of some southern African river frogs confirms Amietia vandijki (Visser & Channing, 1997) as a good species. The form presently referred to as Amietia angolensis in southern Africa is shown to comprise two species: Amietia angolensis (Bocage, 1866) known from Angola, and Amietia quecketti (Boulenger, 1895) known from South Africa, Zimbabwe and Lesotho. Junior synonyms of A. quecketti include Rana theileri Mocquard, 1906 and Afrana dracomontana Channing, 1978. The form presently known as Amietia fuscigula is shown to consist of two distantly related taxa: Amietia fuscigula (Duméril & Bibron, 1841) from the south-western Cape and an undescribed species that we here name Amietia poyntoni sp. nov. Channing & Baptista, known from the rest of South Africa and Namibia. These five species have large differences in 16S sequences, as well as differences in morphology and advertisement call. Call and molecular data are both diagnostic, while morphology shows some overlap between taxa. An extended study of the genus across Africa is in preparation.

The dorsal colour of A. quecketti ranges from dull brown to luminous green with dark patches, and with a prominent vertebral stripe. Its underside is unmarked and quite pale, while its tympanum is more than half the diameter of its eye.