Within the southern Africa region, this species has a relatively wide distribution and is unlikely to be declining fast enough to qualify for listing in a threat or Near Threatened category. Assessed as Least Concern within the region and globally. This is a tropical swamp forest species and in South Africa it is only known from a few localities from coastal KwaZulu-Natal. It is rare across the area and has recently been lost from Richard’s Bay due to industrial and urban development. It is known from between five and 10 locations and an area of occupancy (AOO) of 36 km2. It is a habitat specialist and is experiencing continuous habitat loss to urban development, this species is assessed nationally as Vulnerable B2ab(ii,iii). Since this is a regional assessment at the national level, an adjustment to the status has been considered based on the guideline of the IUCN, however, since this population is isolated from the rest of the global population, there is a low chance of immigration from neighbouring countries, an adjustment is not implemented.
Distribution
Within the southern Africa region, this species occurs in the tropical north and not in the arid southwest or at the Cape. So far it has not been recorded from Angola or Mozambique. This is most probably due to the species' cryptic and often crepuscular behaviour. In South Africa, it is a highly localised species known only from Richards Bay (Pinhey 1985) (from where it has disappeared) and Sodwana Bay, but it is likely to also occur at Kosi Bay (Samways 2006, Samways 2008, Samways and Simaika 2016). Globally, the species has been recorded from Uganda, Malawi and northern Botswana to West Africa.
Forest destruction is a threat in parts of the species' range, especially at Richard’s Bay. Habitat in Richards Bay has been loss due to tree removal for urbanization and in Sodwana Bay the species is impacted by small-scale farming activities (Samways 2006).
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