Hyperolius acuticeps Ahl, 1931a: 29.

Tillack, Frank, Ruiter, Ronald de & Roedel, Mark-Oliver, 2021, A type catalogue of the reed frogs (Amphibia, Anura, Hyperoliidae) in the collection of the Museum fuer Naturkunde Berlin (ZMB) with comments on historical collectors and expeditions, Zoosystematics and Evolution 97 (2), pp. 407-450 : 407

Hyperolius acuticeps Ahl, 1931a: 29.

Syntypes.

ZMB 36039 and ZMB 65176 (formerly part of ZMB 36039), “Konde-Nika” [Region at the northern tip of Lake Malawi, Mbeya and Njombe Region, Tanzania], coll. Friedrich Georg Hans Heinrich Fülleborn, 02.VI.1900.

Present name.

Hyperolius microps Günther, 1864.

Remarks.

Drawing in Ahl (1931b: 282, fig. 153). For the location of “Konde-Land” we refer to Fülleborn (1906: 268 ff.), who describes it as a small area at the northern tip of Lake Malawi as follows: limited in the east by Lake Malawi, in the northeast by the slopes of the Livingstone Mountains [Kipengere Range], in the southeast by the Untali and Malila Mountains, in the north by Rungwe Volcano and in the south by the lower reaches of the Ssongwe (Songwe River).

In 1896, the German physician, doctor of tropical medicine, and explorer Fülleborn joined the colonial “Schutztruppe” in German East Africa, where he was active as a government physician until 1901. From April 1897 to the beginning of 1898, he participated in the military campaigns against the Wangoni and Wahehe of the “Ungoni”, “Uhehe” and “Ubena” regions, in present day southern Tanzania. From 1898 to 1899 Fülleborn was stationed in Langenburg [Lumbira, Mbeya Region, Tanzania] in the north of Lake Malawi and undertook numerous excursions in the surrounding area, which took him to the southern end of Lake Malawi, through the “Schire-Hochländer” [Shire Highlands, southern Malawi], and on the Shire and Zambezi River to Quelimane and afterwards to the Island of Mozambique. In 1899 he was commissioned to research the “German-Nyassa” region from a zoological and ethnological-anthropological point of view. Together with W. Goetze he participated in the "Nyassa-See- und Kinga-Gebirgs-Expedition" ( Engler 1902; Fülleborn 1906; see also comments on Hyperolius goetzei ). During this time Fülleborn also surveyed Lake Malawi and the lakes in northern Nyasaland (Rukwa, Chungruru, Itende) and collected a considerable number of mammals, about 800 birds, more than 1000 fishes, amphibians and reptiles, thousands of insects and other invertebrates, and particularly plankton ( Fülleborn 1900a, b; Paepke and Seegers 1995). The majority of these collections were donated to ZMB. Fülleborn’s extensive herpetological collections were partly studied in the first third of the 20th century by former curators of herpetology at ZMB (e.g. Ahl 1929, 1931a, c; Tornier 1900, 1902, 1905). However, many specimens remained unexamined on the shelves within the 'undetermined material’. On the basis of Fülleborn’s diary Hans Paepke (curator emeritus Department of Ichthyology at ZMB) compiled a list of the places where Fülleborn stayed between April 1897 and October 1899. The diary and this list are archived in the Department of Historical Research at ZMB (Zool. Mus. Sign. S III, “Fülleborn, F.").