"Amphibians of Central and Southern Africa is the first guide to the frogs, toads, and caecilians of the ten sub-equatorial African countries - Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The result is at once a valuable reference tool, a field guide, and a source of ideas for future research.". "A focus of increasing interest in their own right, amphibians are also benchmark species for biodiversity and are used as laboratory animals in many of the sciences. In the wild, amphibians, especially frogs, act as natural monitors of water quality and are invaluable in pest control. Their skins secrete a wide range of pharmacologically active substances, such as antibiotics and painkillers. Yet frog populations are declining worldwide, mainly due to human destruction of their habitats. Alan Channing synthesizes information published over the last century to provide the first natural history and a portrait of the amphibian fauna of this vast region."--BOOK JACKET.