| Great Plains toad | |
|---|---|
 | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Amphibia |
| Order: | Anura |
| Family: | Bufonidae |
| Genus: | Anaxyrus |
| Species: | A. cognatus |
| Binomial name | |
| Anaxyrus cognatus (Say, 1822) | |
| Synonyms | |
Bufo cognatusSay, 1822 | |
The Great Plains toad (Anaxyrus cognatus) is a relatively large species of true toad native to central North America.
The amphibian is native throughout the Canadian Prairies (northern Great Plains) in southern Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan; and into northern Mexico in the Sonoran Desert and Mexican Plateau. [1] [2] [3]
The Great Plains toad is grey, brown, and green in color, with darker colored blotching. It can grow to anywhere between 5.1 and 11.4 cm (2 and 4.5 in) in length. Its primary diet is various species of cutworms. It prefers grassland habitat with loose soil that is easy to burrow in. Breeding occurs throughout the spring and summer months, most often immediately after heavy rainfall. In dry areas it may only emerge from its burrow for a few weeks when conditions are right, and usually at night, but in areas with permanent water bodies and abundant rain it may be active all day. [4] Its mating call is a very loud, harsh chirping noise repeated many times, very fast.
The great plains toad feeds a range of insects such as lepidopterans, dipterans, hymenopterans, coleopterans, ants, and termites. The toad is preyed upon by the plains garter snake (Thamnophis radix), among others. [3] It uses chemoreceptors to sense chemical cues left by the snake.
The great plains toad occur in deserts, grasslands, semi-desert shrublands, open floodplains, and agricultural areas. When inactive they burrow underground. Breeding takes place in temporary water bodies such as rain pools, flooded areas, and ponds; they can also use margins of reservoirs. The eggs and larvae develop in shallow water and metamorphose after 17 to 45 days. [1] [3]
The Great Plains toad has wide distribution and is not considered threatened, although it may suffer from road kills, farming, and suburban sprawl, increased droughts, and urbanization. [1]
Bufo is a genus of true toads in the amphibian family Bufonidae. As traditionally defined, it was a wastebasket genus containing a large number of toads from much of the world, but following taxonomic reviews most of these have been moved to other genera, leaving only seventeen extant (living) species from Europe, northern Africa and Asia in this genus, including the well-known common toad. Some of the genera that contain species formerly placed in Bufo are Anaxyrus, Bufotes, Duttaphrynus, Epidalea and Rhinella.
The Colorado River toad, also known as the Sonoran Desert toad, is a toad species found in northwestern Mexico and the southwestern United States. It is well known for its ability to exude toxins from glands within its skin that have psychoactive properties.
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 Canada and the eastern United States. 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 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. 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 red-spotted toad, formerly Bufo punctatus, is a toad in the family Bufonidae found in the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico.
The Wyoming toad, also known commonly as Baxter's toad, is a species of toad in the family Bufonidae. The Wyoming toad is an extremely rare amphibian that exists only in captivity and within Mortenson Lake National Wildlife Refuge in Wyoming in the United States. The Wyoming toad was listed as an endangered species in 1984, and listed as extinct in the wild since 1991. As with black-footed ferrets at the Tom Thorne and Beth Williams Wildlife Research Center at Sybille in Wheatland, Wyoming, the effort to save the Wyoming toad has been a cooperative effort among state and federal agencies and private landowners. The Wyoming toad was common from the 1950s through the early 1970s, but its distribution was limited to the Laramie Basin in Albany County. The population crashed around 1975 and was extremely low by 1980. The Wyoming toad was federally listed as endangered in January 1984. To prevent extinction, a captive-breeding program began in 1989 at the Thorne Williams Unit that produced enough offspring in its first few years to supply seven zoos, and in 1998 the Saratoga National Fish Hatchery received captive-breeding stock. Nearly 46,000 offspring were produced at the Thorne Williams Unit from 1995 until 2006, when the remaining captive stock was moved to the Red Buttes Environmental Biology Laboratory south of Laramie, and then released back into the wild. Before the sharp declines occurred, this toad had been originally classified as Bufo hemiophrys baxteri, a subspecies of the Canadian toad, by Kenneth Raymond Porter in 1968.
The southern toad is a true toad native to the southeastern United States, from eastern Louisiana and southeastern Virginia south to Florida. It often lives in areas with sandy soils. It is nocturnal and spends the day in a burrow. Its coloring is usually brown but can be red, gray, or black. It is approximately 8 cm (3 inches) long.
The Texas toad is a species of medium-sized toad that occurs in the southern United States and northern Mexico. It breeds in temporary water pools after heavy rains.
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.
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 North American green toad is a species of toad found in the southwestern United States in the states of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, as well as in northern Mexico in the states of Tamaulipas, San Luis Potosí, Durango, and Zacatecas. It is commonly called green toad.
The Canadian toad, also known commonly as the Dakota toad, is a species of toad that ranges from the prairie regions of western Canada south to parts of the upper midwest of the United States. It belongs to the family Bufonidae, the "true" toads. Its specific name is derived from the Latin word hemiophrys, meaning eyebrow, which refers to its pronounced cranial crest between and behind the eyes. Anaxyrus hemiophrys displays the typical toad characteristics: it lacks a tail and teeth, it has a horizontal pupil, and its dry skin is thick and warty.
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 Arizona toad is a species of toad in the family Bufonidae. It is endemic to the south-western United States, where its natural habitats are temperate lowland forests, rivers and streams, swamps, freshwater marshes, freshwater springs, ponds, open excavations, irrigated land, and seasonally flooded agricultural land.
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.
The Sonoran green toad is a species of toad in the family Bufonidae. It is found in northern Mexico and the southwestern United States.
Anaxyrus is a genus of true toads in the family Bufonidae. The genus is endemic to North and Central America. Some authors consider Anaxyrus to be a subgenus within Bufo.
Bufotes, the Eurasian green toads or Palearctic green toads, is a genus of true toads. They are native to Europe, western and central Asia and northern Africa; a region roughly equalling the western and central Palearctic. Historically they were included in the genus Bufo and then for a few years placed in Pseudepidalea, which is a synonym of the currently accepted name Bufotes.
Data related to Bufo cognatus at Wikispecies