California toad

California toad
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Amphibia
Order:	Anura
Family:	Bufonidae
Genus:	Anaxyrus
Species:	A. boreas
Subspecies:	A. b. halophilus
Trinomial name
	Anaxyrus boreas halophilus; (Baird and Girard, 1853)

Last updated October 06, 2019

The California toad (Anaxyrus boreas halophilus) is a subspecies of the western toad, along with the boreal toad. The California toad lives throughout the state of California, with the exception of south-eastern desert regions.^[1] Like the boreal toad, it feeds on a wide variety of insects and invertebrates. Its diet includes grasshoppers, beetles, flies, and mosquitos.

The western toad is a large toad species, between 5.6 and 13 cm long, native to western North America. A. boreas is frequently encountered during the wet season on roads, or near water at other times. When handled, adults often vocalize, making a sound like a peeping chick while struggling. It eats any type of insect it can catch. It can jump a considerable distance for a toad. Breeding occurs between March and July in mountainous areas, and as early as January in lower-elevation regions. The female lays up to 17,000 eggs stuck together in strings that adhere to vegetation and other objects along water edges.

The boreal toad is a subspecies of the western toad. They are commonly found in the Southern Rocky Mountains and in recent, their population has been on the decline due to an emerging amphibian disease, chytrid fungus. The boreal toad is currently listed as an endangered species by Colorado and New Mexico. It is known in Colorado as the only alpine species of toad.

California is a state in the Pacific Region of the United States. With 39.6 million residents across a total area of about 163,696 square miles (423,970 km²), California is the most populous U.S. state and the third-largest by area. The state capital is Sacramento. The Greater Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, with 18.7 million and 9.7 million residents respectively. Los Angeles is California's most populous city, and the country's second-most populous, after New York City. California also has the nation's most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The City and County of San Francisco is both the country's second-most densely populated major city after New York City and the fifth-most densely populated county, behind only four of the five New York City boroughs.

Etymology

The scientific name is Anaxyrus boreas halophilus. Boreas is from the Greek word boreas which means “north wind” or “northern”, halophilus from the Greek halos meaning “sea” or “salt”, and philos meaning “having affinity for”.^[2]^{[ clarification needed ]}

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea. It has the longest documented history of any living Indo-European language, spanning more than 3000 years of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history; other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic, and many other writing systems.

Identification

A Californian toad doing an aggressive call.

The California toad is less blotched (reduced dorsal melanin) than the boreal toad. It has a wider head, larger eyes, smaller feet, and a weaker development of the margins along the dorsal stripe. The largest western toad larvae at 56 mm is also of the California toad. The toad has a wide range of dorsal coloration, from light gray to green to dull black; most however are brownish gray. The California toad, as a western toad, walks rather than hops ^[3] The adult size range is two to five inches.^[4]

Habitat and distribution

The California toad occurs from all of Northern California and down south into Baja California. There are scattered populations in isolated desert areas, such as in the Mojave Desert, but they generally do not occur in the desert areas from Death Valley southward.^[5] The habitats for the California toad range from woodland, grassland, and meadows in forest areas to backyards and parks in the suburbs. It breeds in lakes, creeks, ponds, reservoirs, slowly flowing streams, and canals.^[6]

Northern California is the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. Spanning the state's northernmost 48 counties, its main population centers include the San Francisco Bay Area, the Greater Sacramento area, and the Metropolitan Fresno area. Northern California also contains redwood forests, along with the Sierra Nevada, including Yosemite Valley and part of Lake Tahoe, Mount Shasta, and most of the Central Valley, one of the world's most productive agricultural regions.

Baja California, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California, is a state in Mexico. It is the northernmost and westernmost of the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. Before becoming a state in 1952, the area was known as the North Territory of Baja California. It has an area of 70,113 km² (27,071 sq mi), or 3.57% of the land mass of Mexico and comprises the northern half of the Baja California Peninsula, north of the 28th parallel, plus oceanic Guadalupe Island. The mainland portion of the state is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean, on the east by Sonora, the U.S. state of Arizona, and the Gulf of California, and on the south by Baja California Sur. Its northern limit is the U.S. state of California.

The Mojave Desert is an arid rain-shadow desert and the driest desert in North America. It is in the North American Southwest, primarily within southeastern California and southern Nevada, and it occupies 47,877 sq mi (124,000 km²). Very small areas also extend into Utah and Arizona. Its boundaries are generally noted by the presence of Joshua trees, which are native only to the Mojave Desert and are considered an indicator species, and it is believed to support an additional 1,750 to 2,000 species of plants. The central part of the desert is sparsely populated, while its peripheries support large communities such as Las Vegas, Barstow, Lancaster, Palmdale, Victorville, and St. George.

Reproduction

The California toad breeds from January to July, with later spawning occurring at higher elevations. Many populations are aggregation breeders that come to suitable marsh or pond spawning sites in large numbers. Here males recognize females through random amplexus. Eggs number over 16,000 per female and are laid in strings in shallow water.^[7]

Amplexus is a type of mating behavior exhibited by some externally fertilizing species in which a male grasps a female with his front legs as part of the mating process, and at the same time or with some time delay, he fertilizes the eggs as they are released from the female's body. In amphibians, females may be grasped by the head, waist, or armpits, and the type of amplexus is characteristic of some taxonomic groups. Amplexus involves direct contact between male and female, distinguished from other forms of external fertilization such as broadcast spawning, where sperm and eggs are freely shed into water without direct contact by individuals. Additionally, amplexus is thought to help with the alignment of the reproductive tracts of both males and females which furthermore contributes to the achievement of successful fertilization.

Related Research Articles

The Colorado River toad, also known as the Sonoran Desert toad, is found in northern Mexico and the southwestern United States. Its toxin, as an exudate of glands within the skin, contains 5-MeO-DMT and bufotenin.

The black toad, also known as the Inyo toad or Deep Springs toad, is a true toad that lives only in scattered oases in the Deep Springs Valley of Inyo County, California. In fact, its original scientific name, Bufo exsul, means "exiled toad," which refers to its species' isolation in a tiny spot in the high desert wilderness of the Californian Great Basin.

The American toad is a common species of toad found throughout the eastern United States and Canada. It is divided into three subspecies—the eastern American toad, the dwarf American toad, and the rare Hudson Bay toad. Recent taxonomic treatments place this species in the genus Anaxyrus instead of Bufo.

The arroyo toad is a species of true toads in the family Bufonidae, endemic to California (U.S.) and Baja California state (México). It is currently classified as an Endangered species on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species because of habitat destruction.

The red-spotted toad is a toad in the family Bufonidae found in the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico.

Woodhouse's toad is a medium-sized true toad native to the United States and Mexico. There are three recognized subspecies. A. woodhousii tends to hybridize with Anaxyrus americanus where their ranges overlap.

<i>Anaxyrus fowleri</i> species of amphibian

Fowler's toad is a species of toad in the family Bufonidae. The species is native to North America, where it occurs in much of the eastern United States and parts of adjacent Canada. It was previously considered a subspecies of Woodhouse's toad.

The Great Plains toad, Anaxyrus cognatus, is a relatively large species of true toad native to central North America.

The Yosemite toad is a species of true toad in the family Bufonidae. Endemic to the Sierra Nevada of California, the species ranges from the Alpine County to Fresno County. Yosemite toads are only found in the montane to subalpine elevational zone of 1,950–3,445 m (6,398–11,302 ft) asl. The Yosemite toad is similar to the nearby Western toad, but in many ways adapted to a high elevation lifestyle. It was initially described during the Grinnell Survey of California, by an undergraduate student of Joseph Grinnell named Charles Camp.

The oak toad is a species of toad in the family Bufonidae. It is endemic to the coastal regions of southeastern United States. It is regarded as the smallest species of toad in North America, with a length of 19 to 33 mm.

Wyoming is home to 12 amphibian species and 22 species of reptiles.

There are 14 species of amphibians and 5 species of reptiles known to occur in Mount Rainier National Park.

The Hudson Bay toad is a rare subspecies of the American toad. As suggested by its name, it is found in the Hudson Bay region in Ontario and Quebec, Canada. However, the status of Anaxyrus americanus subspecies is unclear, and Anaxyrus americanus copei is not listed in the 2012 edition of the "Scientific and Standard English Names of Amphibians and Reptiles of North America North of Mexico".

Robert Cyril Stebbins was an American herpetologist and illustrator known for his field guides and popular books as well as his studies of reptiles and amphibians. His Field Guide to Western Reptiles and Amphibians, first published in 1966, is still considered the definitive reference of its kind, owing to both the quality of the illustrations and the comprehensiveness of the text. A professor of zoology at the University of California, Berkeley, for over 30 years, he was the first curator of herpetology at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, a 1949 Guggenheim fellow, and author of over 70 scientific articles. His discovery of the ring species phenomenon in Ensatina salamanders is now a textbook example of speciation, and he performed extensive research on the parietal eye of reptiles. He produced nature films, supported science education in primary grades, and organized conservation efforts that aided in the passing of the 1994 California Desert Protection Act. After retirement he continued to paint, collect field notes, and write books. Stebbins is commemorated in the scientific names of three species: Batrachoseps stebbinsi, the Tehachapi slender salamander; Anniella stebbinsi, a legless lizard; and Ambystoma tigrinum stebbinsi, the endangered Sonora tiger salamander.

References

↑ http://www.californiaherps.com/frogs/pages/a.b.halophilus.html
↑ Dodd, C. Kenneth. 2013. Frogs of the United States and Canada, 2-vol. Set, Volume 1. Baltimore, MD: JHU Press. ISBN 9781421406336. Page 47.
↑ Dodd, C. Kenneth. 2013. Frogs of the United States and Canada, 2-vol. Set, Volume 1. Baltimore, MD: JHU Press. ISBN 9781421406336. Pages 47-48.
↑ Stebbins, Robert C. and Samuel M. McGinnis. 2012. Field Guide to Amphibians and Reptiles of California. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. ISBN 9780520949973. Page 170.
↑ Dodd, C. Kenneth. 2013. Frogs of the United States and Canada, 2-vol. Set, Volume 1. Baltimore, MD: JHU Press. ISBN 9781421406336. Page 49.
↑ Stebbins, Robert C. and Samuel M. McGinnis. 2012. Field Guide to Amphibians and Reptiles of California. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. ISBN 9780520949973. Page 171.
↑ Stebbins, Robert C. and Samuel M. McGinnis. 2012. Field Guide to Amphibians and Reptiles of California. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. ISBN 9780520949973. Page 172.

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[1] ttp://www.californiaherps.com/frogs/pages/a.b.halophilus.html

[2] Dodd, C. Kenneth. 2013. Frogs of the United States and Canada, 2-vol. Set, Volume 1. Baltimore, MD: JHU Press. ISBN 9781421406336. Page 47.

[3] Dodd, C. Kenneth. 2013. Frogs of the United States and Canada, 2-vol. Set, Volume 1. Baltimore, MD: JHU Press. ISBN 9781421406336. Pages 47-48.

[4] Stebbins, Robert C. and Samuel M. McGinnis. 2012. Field Guide to Amphibians and Reptiles of California. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. ISBN 9780520949973. Page 170.

[5] Dodd, C. Kenneth. 2013. Frogs of the United States and Canada, 2-vol. Set, Volume 1. Baltimore, MD: JHU Press. ISBN 9781421406336. Page 49.

[6] Stebbins, Robert C. and Samuel M. McGinnis. 2012. Field Guide to Amphibians and Reptiles of California. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. ISBN 9780520949973. Page 171.

[7] Stebbins, Robert C. and Samuel M. McGinnis. 2012. Field Guide to Amphibians and Reptiles of California. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. ISBN 9780520949973. Page 172.