Rhinella margaritifera (Laurenti, 1768)

English Names

Mitred Toad (Shaw, 1802, Gen. Zool., 3(1): 159; Ananjeva, Borkin, Darevsky, and Orlov, 1988, Dict. Amph. Rept. Five Languages: 41).

South American Common Toad (Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 43).

Distribution

Northern Goias to central Para, Brazil, French Guiana, east to Pernambuco, Brazil, elevations from sea level to 2400 m. See comment. 

Geographic Occurrence

Natural Resident: Brazil, French Guiana

Comment

See Cochran and Goin, 1970, Bull. U.S. Natl. Mus., 288: 101–102, for synonymy. Hoogmoed, 1977, Zool. Meded., Leiden, 51: 274, indicated that there are a number of sibling species confused under this name. Duellman, 1978, Misc. Publ. Mus. Nat. Hist. Univ. Kansas, 65: 118–120, provided a brief account (as Bufo typhonius) and characterization of the call and tadpole. Hoogmoed, 1986, in Rocek (ed.), Studies in Herpetol.: 147–150, suggested that the name Bufo typhonius was a nomen dubium that did not apply to a Bufo, but possibly to some species of Rana (see comment in synonymy of Rana tigerina), and removed Bufo proboscideus, Bufo acutirostris, and Bufo roqueanus from synonymy. See additional comments by Hoogmoed, 1990, in Peters and Hutterer (eds.), Vert. Tropics: 117–120, who, besides summarizing the 1987 paper, noted an unnamed species from the lower Amazon and French Guiana; an unnamed form in Guyana (north of the Amazon drainage); a form from west of the Andes of Ecuador and Colombia (which has subsequently been assigned to Rhinella alata); a form in the Atlantic Coast forest of Brazil; another form in Bolivia; and at least one other in Amazonian Ecuador, Peru, and Colombia. These were further discussed and some geographic distributions estimated by Hass, Dunski, Maxson, and Hoogmoed, 1995, Biotropica, 27: 238–249. Rana typhonia Linnaeus, 1758, Syst. Nat., Ed. 10, 1: 211, is a name wrongfully associated with this synonymy but misapplied to this species almost universally until 1989. See synonymy of Trachycephalus typhonius for combinations based on this name and relevant literature. Rodríguez and Duellman, 1994, Univ. Kansas Mus. Nat. Hist. Spec. Publ., 22: 14–15, provided a brief account, as Bufo typhonius. Vélez-Rodriguez, 1995, PhD Dissert., Univ. Nac. Colombia, suggested that at least 15 species are masquerading under this name in Colombia alone. Lescure and Marty, 2000, Collect. Patrimoines Nat., Paris, 45: 64–67, provided a brief account and photo and noted that more than one species under this name was present in French Guiana. Fouquet, Gilles, Vences, Marty, Blanc, and Gemmell, 2007, PLoS One, 10 (e1109): 1–10, provided molecular evidence that this is a species complex. Fouquet, Vences, Salducci, Meyer, Marty, Blanc, and Gilles, 2007, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 43: 567–582, suggested on the basis of molecular data that nominal Rhinella margaritifera may be composed of as many as 11 species and paraphyletic with respect to Rhinella castaneotica and Rhinella ocellata. França and Venâncio, 2010, Biotemas, 23: 71–84, provided a record for the municipality of Boca do Acre, Amazonas, with a brief discussion of the range. Avila-Pires, Hoogmoed, and Rocha, 2010, Bol. Mus. Parense Emilio Goeldi, Cienc. Nat., 5: 64, placed Bufo martyi as a synonym of Rhinella (as Bufo) margaritifer, citing that the naming of Rhinella martyi was based on several misapprehensions. Bernarde, Machado, and Turci, 2011, Biota Neotrop., 11: 117–144, reported specimens from Reserva Extrativista Riozinho da Liberdade, Acre, Brazil. Jansen, Bloch, Schulze, and Pfenninger, 2011, Zool. Scripta, 40: 567–583, suggested that records for Bolivia are likely more correctly applied to Rhinella paraguayensis or some close relative. Lisboa, Figueiré-do, Melo, Andrade, and Moura, 2012, Herpetol. Rev., 43: 99, provided a record for Pernambuco, Brazil, and commented on the range. See account for Suriname population by Ouboter and Jairam, 2012, Amph. Suriname: 62–65. Lavilla, Caramaschi, Langone, Pombal, and de Sá, 2013, Zootaxa, 3646: 251–264, discussed the nomenclatural odyssey of this species. On the basis of molecular and morphological data Santos, Ibáñez D., and Ron, 2015, ZooKeys, 501: 109–145, redelimited Rhinella alata to include the populations Panama and Chocoan Colombia and Ecuador formerly assigned to Rhinella margaritifera. See Cole, Townsend, Reynolds, MacCulloch, and Lathrop, 2013, Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, 125: 379–381, for brief account (as Rhinella martyi) and records for Guyana. Señaris, Lampo, Rojas-Runjaic, and Barrio-Amorós, 2014, Guía Ilust. Anf. Parque Nac. Canaima: 66–67, provided a brief account (for Rhinella cf. margaritifera) for the Parque Nacional de Canaima, Venezuela, and photograph. Lavilla, Langone, Caramaschi, Pombal, and de Sá, 2017, Zootaxa, 4286: 113–114, rediscovered the holotype from the imprecise type locality "Brasilia", rendering their previous neotype designation invalid. While these authors not the extreme instability this causes the taxonomy of Rhinella margaritifera-group animals, they apparently have not applied to the ICZN to stabilize the situation. For this reason I (DRF) maintain the taxonomy as it was prior to the appearance of this paper. Moraes, Almeida, Fraga, Rojas-Zamora, Pirani, Silva, Carvalho, Gordo, and Werneck, 2017, ZooKeys, 715: 103–159, reported on and discussed specimens (as Rhinella martyi) from the Serra da Mocidade, state of Roraima, northern Brazil. See Barrio-Amorós, Rojas-Runjaic, and Señaris, 2019, Amph. Rept. Conserv., 13 (1: e180): 17, for remarks on taxonomy, range, and literature, noting that one population on the northern versant of the Serranía de Lema may be referable to Rhinella martyi. In addition, these authors noted three other populations in Venezuela that likely represented unnamed species: Venezuela south of the Orinoco River, at least four distinct populations of the Rhinella margaritifera species complex occur, (1) one in western Amazonas State; (2) one in the Sarisariñama foothills, and (3) in El Paují, southern Gran Sabana, where females lack prominent crests. Bruschi, Sousa, Soares, Carvalho, Busin, Ficanha, Lima, Andrade, and Recco-Pimentel, 2019, Genet. Mol. Biol., 42: 445–451, reported on karyotype. For identification of larvae (as Bufo cf. typhonius) in central Amazonia, Brazil, see Hero, 1990, Amazoniana, 11: 201–262. See Barrio-Amorós, Rojas-Runjaic, and Señaris, 2019, Amph. Rept. Conserv., 13 (1: e180): 17, who suggested that this species (as Rhinella martyi) might occur in Venezuela along the northern versant of the Serranía de Lema. Señaris and Rojas-Runjaic, 2020, in Rull and Carnaval (eds.), Neotrop. Divers. Patterns Process.: 571–632, commented on range and conservation status of this complex in the Venezuelan Guayana. Metcalf, Marsh, Torres Pacaya, Graham, and Gunnels, 2020, Herpetol. Notes, 13: 753–767, reported the species from the Santa Cruz Forest Reserve, Loreto, northeastern Peru. Ávila, Morais, Perez, Pansonato, Carvalho, Rojas-Zamora, Gordo, and Farias, 2020, Zootaxa, 4868: 368–388, identified at least four lineages under this name but because of the lack of a type locality assignments of names will be impossible until that problem is resolved. In the Rhinella margaritifera clade, Rhinella margaritifera group of Pereyra, Blotto, Baldo, Chaparro, Ron, Elias-Costa, Iglesias, Venegas, Thomé, Ospina-Sarria, Maciel, Rada, Kolenc, Borteiro, Rivera-Correa, Rojas-Runjaic, Moravec, De la Riva, Wheeler, Castroviejo-Fisher, Grant, Haddad, and Faivovich, 2021, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 447: 1–156, who discussed cryptic species masquerading under this name. Camper, Torres-Carvajal, Ron, Nilsson, Arteaga-Navarro, Knowles, and Arbogast, 2021, Check List, 17: 729–751, provided a record from Wildsumaco Wildlife Sanctuary, Napo Province, Ecuador. Taucce, Costa-Campos, Carvalho, and Michalski, 2022, Eur. J. Taxon., 836: 96–130, reported on distribution, literature, and conservation status for Amapá, Brazil. Lescure, Dewynter, Frétey, Ineich, Ohler, Vidal, and De Massary, 2022, Bull. Soc. Herpetol. France, 181(5): 1–7, doubted the synonymy of Rhinella martyi. Gagliardi-Urrutia, García Dávila, Jaramillo-Martinez, Rojas-Padilla, Rios-Alva, Aguilar-Manihuari, Pérez-Peña, Castroviejo-Fisher, Simões, Estivals, Guillen Huaman, Castro Ruiz, Angulo Chávez, Mariac, Duponchelle, and Renno, 2022, Anf. Loreto: 52–53, provided a brief account, photograph, dot map, and genetic barcode for Loreto, Peru. Crnobrna, Santa-Cruz Farfan, Gallegos, López-Rojas, Llanqui, Panduro Pisco, and Kelsen Arbaiza, 2023, Check List, 19: 441, provided a record of Rhinella gr. margaritifera from Ucayali Department, central-eastern Peru. See comment under Rhinella sebbeni. 

External links:

Please note: these links will take you to external websites not affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History. We are not responsible for their content.

• For access to general information see Wikipedia
• For additional sources of general information from other websites search Google
• For access to relevant technical literature search Google Scholar
• For images search CalPhoto Images and Google Images
• To search the NIH genetic sequence database, see GenBank
• For additional information see AmphibiaWeb report
• For information on conservation status and distribution see the IUCN Redlist
• For information on distribution, habitat, and conservation see the Map of Life
• For related information on conservation and images as well as observations see iNaturalist
• For additional information specific to Ecuador see FaunaWebEcuador: Anfibios del Ecuador
• For access to available specimen data for this species, from over 350 scientific collections, go to Vertnet.