Molo Frog

Fascinating facts about the Molo Frog

• Adult males reach 55 mm in length, while adult females reach 87 mm.
• Their preferred habitat is montane grassland beside streams, and they can also be found in low-intensity agricultural areas.
• The species is named after Gaston-François de Witte, a Belgian naturalist, linking a 20th-century explorer to a frog that still hops across East Africa’s highlands. It’s a reminder that scientific names often carry stories of the people who first documented them.
• Molo frogs are found in protected areas including Aberdare, Mount Kenya, Mount Elgon, and Kilimanjaro National Parks.

At a glance

About the Molo Frog

The Molo frog, Amietia wittei, is a member of the Pyxicephalidae family, its specific name honoring Belgian naturalist Gaston-François de Witte. Adult males reach 55 mm and females 87 mm in snout-urostyle length. Its dorsal colour is dark brown with black dorsolateral folds and elongated warts, a row of irregular dark blotches from the groin toward the tympanum, and some individuals have a bright-green vertebral stripe. The upper lip is uniformly dark with a coppery band extending from the tympanum to the eye, and the lower lip is marbled. It inhabits montane grasslands in Kenya and Tanzania at elevations of 1,100–3,300 m and is found in Aberdare, Mount Kenya, Mount Elgon, and Kilimanjaro National Parks, where it is associated with streams and can occur in areas of low-intensity agriculture.

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