In December 1996, Kim Howell a herpetologist from the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and two colleagues discovered the Kihansi Spray Toad during an ecological survey of the Kihansi Gorge. A formal description of the Kihansi Spray Toad was published in 1998, and in 1999 the Kihansi Spray Toad was listed as Critically Endangered. The Kihansi Spray Toad is a habitat specialist and was restricted at the time of its discovery to five spray wetlands that were maintained by spray from natural waterfalls along the Kihansi River. The total area of the spray wetlands is 0.49 ha, and thus the geographic range of the Kihansi Spray Toad was one of the smallest for any tetrapod worldwide. The Kihansi Spray Toad is a generalist feeder, ovoviviparous—the toadlets when born are 2 mm in length—and its call notes extend into the ultrasonic frequency, which has been suggested to be an adaptation to the high background noise level of the spray toad’s habitat.