Catch Xenopus in the Matroosberg
Although we had already collected African clawed frogs ( Xenopus laevis ) at 3,300 m asl in Lesotho (see here), at 1650 m asl in Sutherland (see here), these only represented two of the clades in the region. In order to get animals at high altitude from the southeastern clade, we needed a high altitude site with African clawed frogs. Happily, the areas around Matroosberg are at 1,300 m asl, and we managed to find frogs at the farm and in a mountain stream.
The stream water is a deep 'tea brown' from the phenols that come from the fynbos in the mountain catchment. The pools in the stream were several meters deep. That's a long way down for a trap to sit.
As you can see, we missed one frog as it escaped from the trap as we pulled it from the water. But there were more than enough animals captured to complete the sample size that we were looking for.
