Cacosternum platys
Silhouette: Dmitry Bogdanov (vectorized by T. Michael Keesey) · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~20% in a week ~40%
The flat caco, flat dainty frog, or smooth dainty frog (Cacosternum platys) is a species of frog in the family Pyxicephalidae, endemic to South Africa. Its natural habitats are Mediterranean-type shrubby vegetation, subtropical or tropical seasonally wet or flooded lowland grassland, intermittent rivers, intermittent freshwater marshes, arable land, pastureland, rural gardens, urban areas, ponds, irrigated land, canals and ditches, and introduced vegetation. Wikipedia →
Recording0:19
South Africa · 2021
© Oliver Angus · iNaturalist · CC BY-NC 4.0
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South Africa · 2021
© Alex Rebelo · iNaturalist · CC BY-NC 4.0
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South Africa · 2023
© Heather and Andrew Hodgson · iNaturalist · CC BY-NC 4.0
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Table Mountain National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa |
More parks will be added in future updates.
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cape Town | 🇿🇦 South Africa |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Flat Dainty frog sighting in Cape Town on a given day, based on 71 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 11th most-seen of the 13 amphibians we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 20%, and over a week to about 40%, if each day is a fresh chance.
August
In that month about 20% of wildlife watchers report a Flat Dainty frog in Cape Town on a given day, against under 5% in May and December–March, the lowest months. That is one of Cape Town's wettest months, with about 120 mm of rain against 15 mm in February.
Between 5 and 8 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Flat Dainty frog sightings with a recorded time, and about 6 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is most active around dawn and dusk.
Only Cape Town, in our data
Cape Town is the only city on Wallace's Line with enough records to rate Flat Dainty frog sightings: about 10% of wildlife watchers there report one on a given day.
Same family: Pyxicephalidae
The closest relatives of the Flat Dainty frog that you can see in Cape Town (family Pyxicephalidae, African Box-headed Frogs) are Clicking Stream Frog (about 30%), Cape River Frog (about 20%) and Cape sand frog (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Flat Dainty frog is recorded against all the amphibians logged in Cape Town (71 verified sightings), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
