EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

African Flat-backed Toad

Flat-backed Toad (Bufo [Amietophrynus] maculatus), Family Bufonidae
Monkoto, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Explanation:  I nearly stepped on this critter in the dark of night out in the jungles of central tropical Africa.  The photo is well lit with my camera flash, but otherwise it was cryptic and hiding in the dark.

This is a flat-backed toad, a rather common and very widespread denizen of forests, woodlands, grasslands, and savannas throughout central Africa.  Although the IUCN Red List range map of the species (also check out BerkeleyMapper's range map) shows it absent in the entire Congo River Basin, I found it smack in the heart of that region, in the remote village of Monkoto that straddles the north and south sectors of immense Salonga National Park.  

Yes, its back is quite flat (it tends to hide under stones and other cover objects).  No, it's not flat because I stepped on it (I didn't).

And for the sake of full disclosure, I did not discover it near a forest pool or savanna wetland.  It was sitting at the entrance to the outhouse that I was wandering to in half-sleep in the dead of night, as I scanned the dense jungle around with my headlamp for eyeshine of leopards or other predators.