Bioacoustics of Nectophrynoides viviparus

Bioacoustics. The call analysis was carried out on a single audio file consisting of 7 calls with a mean of 13.43 pulses per call in each audio file. The call was recorded 26 th of January 2011 in Mdandu, Livingstone Mountains, the Southern Highlands, Tanzania ( –9.7719 , 34.7867 ) at around 2100 m above sea level (a. s. l.) by Michele Menegon near a stream in a closed canopy montane rainforest (Fig. 5 ). The calls are not associated with any known specimen. However, to our knowledge, this is the only audio file from the Southern Highlands populations, and we therefore cautiously assume that this audio file is a suitable representative of Nectophrynoides viviparus sensu stricto . Audio file containing calls of this species deposited online ( https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17277236 ). The calls consist of a sequence of 12–15 pulses per call (Fig. 6 A ). The mean call duration is 0.23 ± 0.03s (range: 0.20– 0.27s ), with a mean call interval of 16.00 ± 5.29s (7.36– 22.27s ). Each call contains a mean of 13.43 ± 1.27 pulses (12–15), with a mean pulse duration of 0.017 ± 0.001s ( 0.005 – 0.019s ). The mean dominant frequency is 1877.71 ± 54.62 Hz (1809–1979 Hz). The call structure is illustrated in a spectrogram and waveform in Fig. 6 A . The male advertisement call is monophasic consisting of pulse trains of similar proportions. The first pulse has the highest intensity followed by a series of pulses that slowly decrease in intensity (Fig. 6 A ). The audio file used for this analysis was sound polluted by a nearby stream. For statistical comparisons between Nectophrynoides viviparus sensu stricto and N. uhehe sp. nov. see Table 2 . For visual comparisons between N. viviparus sensu stricto and N. uhehe sp. nov. see Fig. 6 . More behaviour studies and recordings need to be made in the field to rule out certain factors that could shape the call, such as areas of close vicinity with a high competition between males, stress calls, and simplified communicational calls.