New species of Pyxicephalus?

[John]

There's a fellow on Kingsnake selling these:


He claims they are a new "breed" of Pyxicephalus. They certainly have the right looks for a species in this genus or a closely related one. Anyone have any thoughts?

[Kevin1]

Hello John I know this post is a bit old.
But I asked a similar question about these pyxies on another forum.
The guy said that he knew the vendor and the vendor was just lying to get people interested in buying them.
And that it isn't a new subspecies, just adspersus.
I wrote the vendor asking him exactly what this new subspecies is called and he never wrote back.
Hope that helps.

[John]

Thanks for responding Kevin. Actually I have my own thoughts on this. I think that the range of this genus is such that there are variants within each species. This photo certainly doesn't look quite right to be Pyxicephalus adspersus, and I've seen photos and video of P. edulis and P. adspersus that are distinctly different to what most people accept as the standards for these two species. New species of animals, including frogs, are always being discovered in Africa, and new subspecies are being described all over the world every year. I can't explain the one in this photo but it's different enough to my eyes to reinforce my belief that there's a lot more taxonomic work to be done.

[Kevin1]

I agree with you on that.
For awhile now I've been doing a bit of an independent study project on the genus pyxicephalus and I've looked at hundreds of pictures of these frogs. As well as looked up as much info as I can find on these guys(which is what lead me here).
And I actually made a mistake On my first post the guy said it was actually P. Edulis sorry about that.
But I don't think it looks quite like Edulis either.
I've actually been very confused on the subject of P.edulis for some time now.
The main thing that confuses me is that some pictures I've seen that are claimed to be Edulis have only one stripe that runs down the back.
While others have the three stripes like the one pictured in your caresheet. Do you have any thoughts on this? or anyone else?

[John]

It's very hard to really say anything concrete. Actually, that specimen and a few others were acquired by the zoo I was visiting as Pyxicephalus adspersus. I am friends with the keeper in charge of them and informed him that they were not P. adspersus and more likely P. edulis and that's where the identification came from. He had a sort of "That makes sense" moment because he'd been trying to figure out why they didn't look like the huge male P. adspersus they had on display.

[Kevin1]

Not to say that your wrong.
But did you consider that they might be The Tanzanian subspecies?
I've kind of developed a theory on the whole subject that I've been wanting to share with some fellow pyxie lovers.
If this is common knowledge I apologize.
These pictures are of frogs imported from tanzania and were said to be the Tanzanian subspecies of adspersus






I believe they look quite similiar to the frog in your caresheet.
But my theory is that pyxie frogs that have the three stripes are one subspecies or another of adspersus while the ones with one are edulis.
This is a picture of freshly metamorphosed P.edulis. This picture was taken from TheFrogRanch.com

And here's a picture of an adult from their site.

Something I just thought of today/tonight is perhaps the Tanzanian subspecies of adspersus could be an integrade between the two?
I'm not trying to start an argument or any conflict here. Just thought I would share my thoughts with you all.