The Night Spirit Frog (Leptopelis spiritusnoctis) is considered Ghana’s most beloved frog. For many artists and frog lovers in Ghana and around the globe, it is the poster child for the beauty of nature, thanks first and foremost to its distinctively large silver-grey eyes, just one feature that makes it particularly adorable.
The species name spiritusnoctis comes from two Latin words: spiritus, meaning soul or spirit and noctis, meaning night. Like the name suggests, it is mostly active at night, producing a whispering, buzzing sound as though wooing you.
The Night Spirit Frog is arboreal, spending most of its life on trees. The frog is associated with primary and secondary equatorial evergreen forest and semi-deciduous forest types. Outside of Ghana’s forest belt, it occurs throughout forested parts of West Africa as far as the Niger Delta in Nigeria. In September 2016, for the first time, SAVE GHANA FROGS recorded it along the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) Wewe River in Kumasi, Ghana. The Wewe River is the site of an ongoing restoration project by our KNUST student members.
The beautiful night spirit frog